The Government of India has initiated various measures to take the fruits of the information technology to the common man, by establishing one lakh common service centers right from the city to the village block level through the private-public partnership (PPP) model.
On the State Government projects, it would be for land records, road transport, property registration, agriculture, treasuries, municipalities, gram panchayats, commercial taxes and police departments.
Other projects that come under e-governance would be the e-commerce, e-business, common service centers, and setting-up of the India portal, EG gateway, e-courts, and e-procurement.
Of all these, the MCA-21 project is the only successful project, which has been launched apart from PSUs taking the e-procurement route.
Common service centers
The year 2007 will see the establishment of one-lakh common service centers for agriculture, e-courts as well as other initiatives. The common service centers (CSCs) will serve as a front-end for most of the government services for a nominal fee and would be broadband enabled, thus connecting the rural citizens through the Internet.
The project is to be implemented on the PPP model and would cost Rs 5,742 crore, of which the Central Government's contribution would be Rs 856 crore. Each State Government will contribute Rs 793 crore.
The private partner is expected to invest the remaining amount and the partner will be entrusted with the running of the CSC on a BOOT (Build-own-operate-transfer) model. Already 11 States have been granted permission for the implementation of the project.
National citizen database
The government, through the DIT, would implement the Unique ID (UID) project, initiated by the Planning Commission. The purpose of the UID is to create a central database of resident information and assign a unique identification number to each resident in the country, as a basis for efficient delivery of social and welfare services.
Indian language computing
To take IT to the common man, the government had initiated another project to make available tools and fonts in various Indian languages, free of cost to the general public. So far CDs containing such software tools for Hindi, Tamil and Telugu were released.
Fab policy
The year 2006 saw a lot of noise in the semiconductor, with SemIndia announcing plans to set-up a Fab in Hyderabad and not going ahead due to the lack of a comprehensive policy. The government is expected to announce a proactive Fab Policy in the 2007-`08 Budget. This will further see India growing as a preferred destination for the manufacturing of semiconductors and other high-end technology IT products.
Similarly, the government is also considering a proposal for Electronics and IT Hardware Manufacturing Policy, which aims at the rationalization of tariff structure on capital goods and inputs, unification of manufacturing for domestic market and exports, registration of international patents, transfer of technology (TOT), and R&D.
Foreign investment
India saw many foreign investors and major corporations setting-up their base in the country, thus taking it to the next level of technology stage of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and convergence. The country has become a major destination for FDI investments in the Information Communication Technology sector. World leaders in ICT such as Intel, Cisco, SemIndia-AMD, Microsoft, Motorola, Ericsson, Nokia, Kyocera, Siemens, LG, Samsung, etc., have announced large investment plans for India in hardware manufacturing or chip design or R&D or to develop software products.
Various State governments too volunteered to set-up IT working groups with the Indian officials and companies.
Data protection, privacy
With the clauses in the IT Act considered archaic as compared to other countries and also the fast-growing technologies, the government decided to concentrate on data protection and privacy. A Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha during winter session to amend the IT Act, 2000. The Bill proposes to amend some of the existing sections and insert new sections in the IT Act, the Indian Penal Code, the Indian Evidence Act and the Code of Criminal Procedure to address various issues.
State data centers
To achieve all these, the Union Government has initiated the setting-up of State Data Centers as well as Disaster Recovery Centers in all the States for taking the e-governance framework forward. For this the government has given a freehand to the State Governments and has set a deadline of December 2006, for the State Data Centers to be in place. All the Data Centers would be connected to the Common Service Centers (CSCs). The government has also asked State governments to establish State Wide Area Network (SWAN) and connect to all the CSCs.
SEZs vs STPIs
The year also saw a new trend in terms of the government introducing the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) concept, though there was a huge hue and cry about the peasant giving his farmland to the computer-savvy generation.
The SEZ status government gave a lot of sops for the IT/ITES companies. A section of the industry still wants the benefits of STPI to be extended for another few more years. The government is considering the issue, it is learnt.
Research and Development
The government has also initiated Research and Development projects, especially in the area of bioinformatics. The projects would further and assert India's potential as a Global player in Post Genomic Research leveraging India's IT advantage.
It would also promote R&D in Bioinformtics and its applications such as environmental sciences, agriculture, industrial applications and pharmaceuticals. About eight projects had been initiated, but only six projects worth Rs 718.164 lakh were implemented in 2006.
Tier-2 cities and the road ahead
The government seems to be doing a balancing act between the citizen and the industry. While there have been a slew of citizen-centric initiatives, the government was seen toeing the industry line, for the development of the IT/ITES sector.
Seen as a potential employer and a major contributor to the country's GDP, IT industry has been suggesting measures and the government is also taking it in a positive note and also implementing it.
One of the major initiatives was the government's policy of not concentrating or limiting the growth due to the lack of infrastructure, but taking it to the tier-2 cities and towns, where the industry would not only be able to find untapped talent but also at affordable cost.
However, the citizens, industry and the government still feel that there is a lot to be done, especially when coming to reaching the unreached and making IT possible for the common man.
Autor(en)/Author(s): R Jai Krishna
Quelle/Source: DQ Channels, 27.12.2006
