The Hindu Business Line : Phase-I testing on for host of e-gov services

Chennai March 25 Wouldn't it be convenient to receive an SMS from your municipal corporation saying you have only two more days to pay the water tax? Or your RTO saying your driving licence needs renewal?

This may not be wishful thinking as the Government is currently testing a host of such services.

"We have commenced the Phase-I testing for such services. Some State Governments have also come forward to help us in these efforts," said Mr M.R. Rajagopalan, Director, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), the R&D institution working with the Government to implement the National e-governance plan.

C-DAC is also working on integrating services and providing interoperability between Government departments.

For instance, when a child is born and the municipality records the birth, details would be automatically reflected in the family's ration card and other such civic requirements in the child's lifetime.

The possibility to open out this kind of development to public-private partnership is also being explored, Mr Rajagopalan said.

Speaking at a session on open source software organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), he said the Government had used free and open source software (FOSS) to develop solutions for e-governance, education institutes and scientific and engineering applications.

A committee, which had been set up to discuss policy-related issues, was now evolving some standards for FOSS, he said.

The session also dwelled on how organisations must choose software keeping in mind the total cost of ownership (TCO) that includes maintenance, personnel training and security related costs. Dr T.R. Madan Mohan, Director, Frost and Sullivan, said companies must look at the Capex-Opex spends before choosing between open source and proprietary software.

"Capex and Opex today make up 52.8 per cent and 47.2 per cent respectively of the TCO. Opex is fast growing due to increased spends on training manpower. Companies must hence consider these aspects in TCO analysis before choosing a software," he said.

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