When the Centre announced the ambitious Unique Identification Programme, what the people noticed the most, apart from the umpteen benefits of having a ‘unique identity’ and the project’s high-profile chairman Nandan Nilekani, was the huge sum it would cost the exchequer. The total cost of the project is estimated to be more than Rs 15,000 crore. And the main beneficiaries of this expenditure will be the IT companies.
The UID project is only a part of the jackpot the IT companies are going to hit. The Central and state governments and many PSUs are investing big sums in improving the IT infrastructure. A Springboard Research study says that IT spending by public sector and government departments is expected to grow to $5.1 billion by 2011. According to the study, more than two-thirds of the spending will be controlled by the Centre. The state governments (22 per cent) and local bodies (11 per cent) will control the rest.
The Centre is investing in numerous initiatives that aim to leverage technology to make governance more effective and transparent. A mega project is the automation of district courts and high courts. The automation will streamline the flow of information between the courts. Wipro is actively involved in the project.
The Centre has announced significant investments in projects under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). Many of these projects have already been sanctioned and IT companies are pursuing them. Apart from the large contracts in telecom, railways and defence, there are many relatively smaller state government projects, such as e-district, e-municipality and e-health. They offer the second and third-rung IT companies big opportunities.
IT companies are finding the sizeable government projects an opportunity to offset the lack of growth in the overseas markets. TCS, for instance, is expected to significantly increase its revenues in the next three years from government IT projects. It has two mission mode projects under its belt—MCA-21 (with company affairs ministry) and Passport Seva Project (with external affairs ministry).
Cisco has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Karnataka government for an initiative to create an intelligent Bangalore. As a pilot programme, the company is working with the state road transport corporation and the police to improve safety and security at a major bus terminal in the city. The project will help improve public safety and security at strategic points within the terminal, offering remote monitoring capabilities with real time information. “There has been a change in the government attitude towards adopting new IT projects. Government used to allocate only a part of a project to the IT companies. Now it is giving end-to-end projects,” says Sandeep Raina, senior vice-president, Cisco India.
Hewlett-Packard is one of the major providers of IT services to governments and public sector units. It is working on projects such as the Karnataka government’s e-procurement project, LIC’s Enterprise Document Management system solution, Himachal Pradesh State Wide Area Network and Maharashtra government’s Medical Education and Drugs Department project. “Public sector and government is one of our key focus areas in India. HP has a dedicated team of people, processes and technologies that can help government agencies serve their citizens better,” says Faisal Paul, head ESS (marketing & growth initiatives), technology solutions group, HP India.
Hughes Communications has a separate team to take care of the government and public sector projects. Around 40 per cent of its workforce in India focuses on the government sector. Currently, the company is working on providing connectivity to Canara Bank, SBI, Bank of India and Union Bank of India. “India has the lowest offsite
ATMs per person. The potential to tap this space is huge,” says Shivaji Chatterjee, vice-president (enterprise), Hughes Communications.
Hughes has set up a dedicated network for the Indian Railways. The network helps railways manage freight, set up network for accident relief trains and provide internet connectivity on a pilot basis on some express trains. The network also helps in providing connectivity for unreserved ticketing systems across stations. The company is also working with the health ministry to implement the integrated disease surveillance project. The project will help in integrating the information on health incidents from across health centres in the country.
Many government departments have become more professional and faster in decision making, and are keeping pace with the private IT partners. But companies often do not mind even if the progress of the projects is snaillike as big money is involved. “The progress in some government IT projects is sometimes slow but the projects are huge in magnitude. The government has now moved beyond basic computerisation projects and is now embarking on huge end-to-end multi-faceted projects,” says Karan Bajwa, general manager (public sector), Microsoft India.
The projects which are already on offer are just the tip of the iceberg, considering that most government establishments are yet to make use of IT to its full potential. This promises a great business opportunity for the IT companies.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Abhinav Singh
Quelle/Source: The Week, 10.01.2010
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