---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Umashankar Sahu <
ussahu@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 5:31 PM
Subject: {KBK OTable} Sam's Agenda
To:
kbkroundtable@googlegroups.com
Sam's Agenda
The three fundamental challenges facing India today are disparity,
demography and development: there is disparity between the rich and
the poor, between urban-rural populace, and between the educated and
the uneducated; demography is yet another challenge, given the fact
that India has a population of over 550 million below the age of 25
and of 750 million below the age of 35; and, when it comes to
development, change is taking place in the country but not fast
enough. Action on these three areas will determine whether India can
make the next decade its decade or not. Another crucial piece of the
puzzle is the power of connectivity and accessibility. We have to
understand the power of one billion unconnected people in this world
is very different from one billion connected people. Connectivity
offers different dimension and dynamics to development in our
democracy in view of our vibrant young population. It offers a unique
opportunity to transform India in a very special way. And it is an
agenda that Sam Pitroda, Advisor to the Prime Minister on Public
Information, Infrastructure & Innovations, is seeking to implement.
According to him, the time is right for the 'decade of innovation',
with the people having the right mindset for such change. "Today,
India has confidence, there is a different mindset and there is a
willingness to change. There are challenges we have in front of us.
But at least we know the direction we want to take and while we might
face some roadblocks, I see this as a historic opportunity."
In an exclusive interview to Inclusion, the father of the telecom
revolution in India, Pitroda said that the starting point to tackle
the challenges that India faces is technology. While political will is
important, it is technology that can force the change. "And today, we
have the technology on the ground. But what is needed are the
applications that will enable the people to benefit from such
technology." Pointing out that the country has over the last decade
set up a huge information infrastructure, which can be upgraded very
quickly to global standards. "If the global standards meet our needs,
we will adopt them, if not then we will create our own standards." He
further added, "we have to crash the transaction costs substantially.
We want to do open source and open standards as much as possible and
sit Indian languages on top of that."
IT systems and infrastructure in the country have tremendous potential
to benefit people and improve the delivery of public services. This is
especially crucial for the bottom of the pyramid where basic services
such as healthcare, education, water, sanitation, energy and housing
are inadequate. By creating accessible and transparent systems through
IT and generating organizational reform, we can succeed in improving
the delivery of these services across sectors. "Already, steps have
been initiated by the National Knowledge Network to use this
information infrastructure to connect all our universities, our R&D
laboratories, agricultural research, health research, and libraries.
The aim is to be able to increase collaboration because all modern
research today is multi-disciplinary."
Pitroda cautions that such change cannot happen immediately. "But, a
start has to be made. Today, the communication system is in place. We
now have to put in place the necessary infrastructure with
standardisation. The assets on the ground are in place and the thrust
now has to be on developing applications based on an Indian model,
Indian needs and Indian languages." Such applications, according to
Pitroda, will come from both the public sector and the private sector.
But, it is the government that has to put the standards in place, with
implementation being done largely by the private sector. On the
argument that decentralized implementation and issues at state level
impede progress, Pitroda said that it was precisely because of this
that the centre should put in place the necessary standards for system
and processes on which new applications are based.
Common and standardized platforms are crucial for the service
experience to become more citizen centric. Standardization and
integration has the potential to optimize delivery of services of the
processes which impact citizens the most such as birth certificates,
death certificates, land records, pension, ration cards, drivers
license, taxes, etc; and also for expediting delivery of justice, and
creating an all new interface for the citizen in e-governance. "One of
the problems I find in today's e-government programmes is that the
states are being given money and then being allowed to spend it on
whatever hardware or software they want to. That is why nothing has
scaled. Because there is a programme, somebody goes and buys some
hardware or software, somebody else buys another. This is preventing
any kind of integration. There should be nation-wide applicability of
any new system that is put in place. "We cannot have a system that
works differently in different regions. Ultimately, one should be able
to get a driving licence for Delhi by taking a test in Mumbai. And
this is something that we do not need to look at the Western world
for. This is because we are probably one of the very few countries
where the driving licence programme is standardised. Every state has
the same piece of software for driving licence. All we need here is
better system integration." He further said, "we have assets on the
ground, we need to create applications now to really capitalise on
these."
This is especially important when it comes to issues like homeland
security. "Even if we just organise information with technology, even
if we take the 20-odd state security agencies and make their databases
talk to each other, we will make a major difference. Today, the police
is not talking to IB which is not talking to other security forces or
various government departments not talking to anybody. Everybody is
doing their own thing. That is where IT can make a difference."
Agreeing that the task ahead is monumental, Pitroda said that learning
lies in the telecom revolution. As telecom connectivity spread, the
costs started coming down, accessibility improved even further and
today we have a situation where we are adding 10 million new
subscribers every month. Connecting rural India to urban India,
connecting urban India to the world is really transforming the way we
communicate. And it's empowering the people. "So, it is a question of
who walks the first mile. Once you do that, you will see that everyone
is willing to walk the last mile. It is also a question of getting the
right people to work at solving the problems of the poor. Today, the
best brains are working on solving the problems of the rich, who
actually do not have any problems. And, it is because of situations
like this that we have an automated traffic management system for
aviation but not one for the railways - the common man's mode of
transportation."
According to Pitroda, it is technology that can bring in the required
transparency even as it improves productivity, efficiency and
accountability, and reduces cost, corruption and leakages. "Consider
the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, where we have to pay
200 million people minimum wage for 100 days. Today, this payment is
done through manual means. Is there a way to pay them through mobile
phones or directly in an automated fashion? It is the development of
such applications that can drive the change that we are all looking
for. What one needs is a business model for all applications, with the
private sector playing the role of service delivery and not that
hardware or software installation and maintenance." Continuing with
his example of the Indian Railways, Pitroda says that today the Indian
Railways are one of the largest in the world, but they still do not
have an electronic signalling system. "If technology is put to use
here and satellite signalling systems are installed, we can probably
double the capacity of the system."
Governance has to be inclusive, not exclusive. It is all about
building a society where we pay more attention to growth for the large
number of people, not a mere handful. Economic liberalisation is no
longer an issue. The big issue today is how do we create an inclusive
society? How do we provide education, health services and employment?
The realisation that provision of such services will come from only
the government is beginning to change. "People are willing to pay
provided the cost is right and the service is delivered." And, this is
where innovation comes in. According to Pitroda, organisational
innovation is a crying need of the times. We need innovative IT
interfaces that enable different government departments and arms to be
able to talk to each other. Information should be able to flow
seamlessly from one government department to another, with the
necessary information security systems in place. For, Pitroda,
diversity is very critical to innovation and this is something the
country has in abundance. But now we have to change the way we
innovate governmental processes. Beyond government, we need to create
an ecosystem for innovation so that the benefits are reflected across
sectors including academia, industry and society. However an Indian
model of innovation has to be inclusive, with a special focus on the
challenges and problems at the bottom of the pyramid. We need to pay
attention to grassroots innovations and harnessing technology to
create services for more at a lesser cost.
"I have been saying that best brains in the world are busy solving the
problems of the rich. As a result, problems of the poor don't get
adequate attention. Technology can be used for solving the problems of
the poor and ultimately can become a potential tool for poverty
alleviation," opined Pitroda.
And for innovation to progress, we need knowledge. In fact, it was in
this background that the previous government had set up the National
Knowledge Commission. The Commission actually examined five aspects of
knowledge. It looked at access to knowledge, knowledge concepts, which
is education, knowledge creation, its application and its role in
governance. Knowledge concepts includes primary education, secondary
education, distance learning, vocational education, higher education
and teachers' training while knowledge creation looks at who creates
knowledge and how is knowledge created? This includes science and
patents, copyrights, innovation, technology and entrepreneurship.
Application of knowledge looks at its role in agriculture, health, the
industrial sector and services delivery. We have a great deal of
traditional knowledge, which we need to recover. In its report, the
Commission submitted around 300 recommendations on 27 focus areas.
While the term of the Commission has come to an end, the
implementation of its recommendations is currently underway at the
Central and State levels.
Agreeing that implementation is still a major issue, Pitroda said that
what is needed here are change agents. The government has unveiled
major plans for most sectors, including education, social and health
sectors. Such change agents are also needed within the government.
"Today, when we are a global IT champion, it is quite dismal that we
have no IT in our government. So, we are still moving files using
paper. If we start moving files electronically, we can track where the
file is, what is its status, and how long will it take to deliver
results. This process has to start somewhere." By increasing the role
of IT, the government can take a lot of unnecessary human interface
away and this should become the practice whether it is to file income
tax, to get a birth or death certificate, for school records,
passports, etc. The Government's UID programme will also plug in to
this drive towards accessible services. Today, the issue is to create
services that may not be commercially viable in the beginning, but are
citizen centric. We already have the necessary infrastructure; we only
have to upgrade it so that the information super highways of tomorrow
are created even as we go around creating traffic for this and this is
something that has to be done simultaneously. For example, says
Pitroda, tracking of court cases that have been pending for 15 years.
How do we use IT to really computerise these court cases, change, if
necessary, the regulations, so as to be able to use the infrastructure
to modernise our legal system. That is another big project because
that ultimately gets translated into public good.
Stressing on the importance of local self-governance, Pitroda said,
the true meaning of public-private partnership is not limited to the
role of private sector as providing hardware and software. The role of
the private sector is really to deliver services. "When you go to
250,000 panchayats, they have to have trained people, systems to run
and have government funding. We need to be careful in creating a
public-private partnership system of right kind. This is where I am
convinced that government must set standards." The government must
also take steps to ensure connectivity at the grassroots to enable
delivery of services. In this regard, broadband connectivity needs to
be expanded to the 250,000 panchayats in the country, which are the
backbone of local governance.
According to Pitroda, one of the most fundamental changes being
brought in the country today is in the education sector. Today, the
government has reserved up to 13 per cent of the country's budget on
various education related activities. The aim is to set up 30 more
national universities, 400 new colleges and 6,000 new schools, and
work on this has already started. The aim here is to create at least
one school in each block. The first stream will consist of 2,500
public funded schools in the educationally backward blocks,. The
second stream of about 2,500 schools would be set up through public
private partnership in other blocks with emphasis on geographical,
demographic, gender and social equity. Modalities for the remaining
1,000 schools have yet not been finalised. Here again, the task can
receive a significant boost, if the government is able to use its
existing IT infrastructure in an efficient manner. Generational
changes are required, for which our existing system does not appear to
be fully prepared. It is time to take education to the masses!
For the telecom czar, India is in a peculiar position: there are
schools where every teacher has a laptop and there are still others,
who do not even have a blackboard. "All of this takes time. We took 20
years to get the telecom thing work. In this day and age you can't
have a teacher without a laptop. It will happen but you still have
five years down the road. This is the beauty of India, where
everything has to happen simultaneously. Today, we have the
technology, and what we need is the people, the applications and the
political will to implements the change." Similarly, when we come to
the health sector, today we are faced with a greenfield situation. We
have the technology and we can create our own health vault, with the
health records of all citizens using indigenous technology. "We can't
rely either on Microsoft or Google for us to have a health vault. The
work has to start. We cannot go on waiting for someone else to take
the initiative."
"We need to pay more attention at the bottom of the pyramid, focusing
more on growth of large number of people and not the handful. We are
setting up the right kind of infrastructure now for the next big jump.
It is not about economic liberalisation. It is about creating an
inclusive society, providing education, health services, and creating
more jobs," concluded Pitroda
N.B: Mr. Sam Pitroda's childhood and schooling was spent in Titilagarh
of Bolangir
--
Umashankar Sahu
Bolangir
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