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GOVERNANCE |  e-solutions conclave
What a farce, my countrymen!

Amidst much fanfare the Centre and State government held the two-day 14th National Conference on e-Governance at Aurangabad from February 10. Behind the corporate glitz, the conference stopped short of meeting the expectations of the average rural Indian. In fact, the ordinary rural Indian for whose betterment the conference was held, was nowhere to be seen. Even major stakeholders like the Union Ministry of Panchayati Raj and Agriculture were conspicuous by their absence 

by PRASHANT HAMINE

THE Union Ministry of Panchayati Raj, in view of the financial year ending, may now have issued a circular to all the State governments to utilize funds allocated by it. Yet, when it came to the just-concluded 14th National Conference on e-Governance at Aurangabad, Maharashtra, the Ministry was nowhere to be seen. This was glaring as the theme of this year’s conference was “Rural e-Service Delivery”.

No award-winning farmers, sarpanches or any government or voluntary agency working in the rural sector were invited nor were their views sought or taken note of. Mainly organized by the Union Ministry of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances along with the Union Ministry of Information and Technology, the meet had Ministers, bureaucrats, experts, academicians and corporate honchos deliberating on topics like “Rural e-Service Delivery –Status and Challenges”, “e- Governance in Promoting Rural Entrepreneurship”, “Enabling e-Panchayats” and “Focus Sector –Agriculture: ICT (Information and Communication Technology) in Agriculture”. As Dr Sneha Palnitkar of the All-India Institute of Local Self Government (AIILSG) remarked, “Nobody attended the said conference.” Also noticeable was the absence of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD). There was no representation from the Maharashtra government-run Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration (YASHADA). The institution has organizational wings that deal with rural governance. Another prominent voluntary agency that should not have been missing was the UN-recognized Rambhau Mhalgi Prabhodini. And key Ministries that were absent included Women and Child Development, Power, Health, Social Justice, Revenue, and Food and Civil Supplies. 

The organizer-stakeholder disconnect was apparent throughout the conference and its three plenary sessions. It was amply exemplified by a representative from Uttar Pradesh objecting strongly to Protiviti Managing Director Pankaj Arora describing panchayati raj institutions as “business units” in his presentation during the plenary session on “Enabling e-Panchayats”. So enraged was the UP representative that he stated, “Please do not treat panchayats as business units. They are elected bodies. Please do not try to further your business interests here.”

Delivering the keynote address, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan admitted that the people were not entirely happy with the way the government functioned and were willing to shell out money for services they needed. According to him, the biggest challenge in ushering in e-governance at the panchayat level was bridging the digital divide in terms of language compatibility and keeping pace with the technological advances in the information technology (IT) sector. Though he was expected to announce his government’s much awaited IT policy, in the end this did not materialize.

There were no views taken nor sought from any award-winning farmer, any sarpanch or voluntary agencies working in the rural sector.

The Union Minister of State for Public Grievances and Pensions, V Narayanswamy, was expected to give directions on the government’s plans for promoting e-governance in local self-government bodies and in the government at large but this too did not happen. The IT sector accounts for 24% of the country’s exports. He did point out the concept of paperless offices in European countries and the need for India to take the lead in development of hardware technologies in the IT sector. Narayanswamy also admitted that there was lopsided progress when it came to implementing e-governance initiatives at the State government level. 

The lopsided progress made by States in terms of e-governance was also evident in the presentation of the national awards for e-governance. Of the 15 awards, seven were bagged by Karnataka and Gujarat while Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu shared the rest. Maharashtra’s prestige was salvaged by Gadchiroli District Collector Atul N Patney, whose e-Disaster Management Cell has come up with an innovative system of SMS flood threat alerts for the people. Not so long ago, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, touring the Naxalism affected district, had snubbed Patney and prevented him from making his presentation.

In his welcome address, Maharashtra Governor K Shankarnarayanan pointed out that the biggest hurdle to good governance is corruption which is preventing the fruits of development from reaching the common man. He also raised the rather uncomfortable question of infrastructure while arguing that, if the government were to provide computers to a school in Gadchiroli, then it needed to ensure that the village school had proper classrooms and power supply to run the computers and trained teachers to teach the use of computers.

Former Planning Commission member RP Sinha admitted that many of the e-governance and IT initiatives appear to be ‘wishful thinking’.

MAKING his presentation on “Rural e-Service Delivery –Status and Challenges” in the first plenary session, Vikas Agarwal of KPMG made the usual references to 72% of India’s population living in villages, and the problems faced by people in accessing government services as well as the presence of middlemen. He argued that technology should be used where it is absolutely necessary. 

Ramesh C Misra, Secretary, Union Ministry of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances, harped on the government having already started 87,000 of the one lakh Common Service Centres (CSCs) which utilize ICT in providing land records, birth and death certificates and so on to rural people. 

Interestingly, both Agarwal and Misra’s impressive-sounding presentations were laid low by IIM, Ahmedabad, professor Subhash Bhatnagar who revealed that an IIM survey had found that CSC employees had no work but inoculating pigs! He said that, during his interaction with Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, the latter had remarked that in India there is too much hype about the need to usher in IT in governance. Bhatnagar pointed out that IT is a means and not an end in itself. 

He further disclosed that the IIM survey revealed that it took around three to four trips, amounting to around Rs 150-200, inclusive of bribes and other costs, for a farmer to procure any official document from the taluka or district government office. He slammed the administrative machinery for insisting on lengthy paperwork and not getting right the basket of services on offer.
REFERRING to the CSC initiative, Bhatnagar termed it a case of putting the cart before the horse. He said it should have come after the government implemented its e-district programme. The professor’s remarks on government hype about IT and CSCs stung Shankar Agarwal, the Additional Secretary, Union department of IT. Agarwal argued that the CSCs were doing a good job in providing government services at the doorsteps of villagers.

NASCOM chairman Harsh Manglik argued that the country still does not have far and wide e-connectivity. Himanshu Misra of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) too advocated the judicious application and use of IT solutions rather than reckless use. He reminded the gathering about the pitfalls of universal application of IT solutions, arguing that what might work in one region of the country may not necessarily work in another. He also pointed out that people in rural India lacked the soft skills of communication though several speakers before him emphasised the growing number of mobile telephone users in the country. 

Former Planning Commission member RP Sinha admitted that many of the e-governance and IT initiatives appeared to be “wishful thinking”. He argued that there is no clear “destination scenario” before the government in terms of what it intends to achieve and in which timeframe while introducing IT in governance. Sinha sought to remind the gathering that there is a vast difference between what is meant by e-governance and e-government. He further argued that the government initiatives so far have not empowered anybody. 

The absence of the Union Minister for Panchayati Raj, Vilasrao Deshmukh, was regrettable. Being a former sarpanch, he could have provided valuable insight into the functioning of the panchayats. Nor was any sarpanch from a village that had won the State government’s recently awarded Adarsh Gram Yojana called to give his views. 

The concluding fourth plenary session on “Focus Sector: ICT in Agriculture” should ideally have been presided over, if not attended, by Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar. But that task was left to the Union Food Secretary, Dr BC Gupta. Making his presentation on ICT in agriculture, Col Ajay Sharma of the TCS summed it up well by arguing, “The Indian farmer needs to be treated as a professional rather than a subject of subsidy.” 

In all the deliberations of the four plenary sessions, especially on agriculture, the role of women was utterly overlooked. In rural India, women form the bulk of the workforce in agricultural farming, being involved in almost all agriculture-related tasks. The closest anybody came to recognizing the role of women was the exhibition stall put up by the Kolhapur Municipal Corporation, where badges were pinned on the delegates – urging them to pledge support to protection of the girl child. 

At the end, the stall put up by Maharashtra’s IT department, highlighting its achievements in implementing the National Land Reforms Modernisation Programme, won the State its second award of the conference.