The Hindu Business Line : Snooze and you lose

E-governance is all about governance, not just a fancy for technology. And Andhra Pradesh is proving just that, by putting theory into practice. Can the rest afford to lag behind any longer?

WHEN the system was being implemented, the IT secretary, Satyanarayana, made himself available to talk to us anytime of the day. The Chief Minister in his campaign speeches speaks about the CARD project. We are proud of this and would not like to let him down," a clerk in the registrar's office in Andhra Pradesh comments thus on the implementation of e-governance projects in that State.

Switching from Andhra Pradesh to another State, Karnataka, the "e" part is not as important as the "governance" part, as far as e-governance is concerned, says Prof S. Krishna, head of the Centre for Software Enterprise, IIM Bangalore. It is for this reason that Prof Krishna maintains that technology is not as much an issue here as management and planning is. As an example, he points out that Karnataka, which loses no chance to trumpet its status as the IT capital of India, ironically, has little to show in terms of e-governance projects. On the other hand, Andhra Pradesh, where the Hitec City still has vacant space, may not be high in terms of industry, but scores well above the others in e-governance.

Prof Krishna, who is highly critical of the e-governance initiatives in Karnataka, says that the Bhoomi project, cited every time talk of e-governance comes up, is really a very simplistic one. The digitalisation of land records is a one-time job and once it is done, data is not expected to change very often. Compare this with the e-seva project in Hyderabad, he says, which is a hundred times more complex. E-seva consists of payment of bills, which every citizen needs to do every month, and managing that is a lot more complex. "Procuring hardware and writing programmes is the easiest part."

Prof Krishna, who has written a white paper on implementation of ICT projects in the social sector, says that unfortunately, other than Andhra Pradesh, no Government has succeeded in this. Indian States can console themselves somewhat because there are very few social ICT successes anywhere in the world. In fact, most ICT projects in developing countries are prone to failure for several reasons. Developing countries have little expertise in implementation and the resistance to change by vested interests is high, he says.

Stunt versus substance

However, something that touches the lives of people will finally help the political leadership, Prof Krishna believes. His logic is simple: when technology makes a difference to the lives of the common people, it will be appreciated. This, in turn, will help the political leadership gain votes when the benefits of IT are realised, he says. It is a big risk to take from the political point of view, but it is a challenge to be met, he says. Rather than approach it as a publicity stunt.

Andhra Pradesh has its share of failures and not all projects took off. But the State started with small, simple systems and then moved on to complex ones, Prof Krishna says. "Whenever projects failed, there was an attempt to find out what they did wrong, something that I don't see happening in Karnataka," Prof Krishna says.

Chandrababu Naidu has been "quietly doing all this," Prof Krishna says. He has been doing the right things on the HR front too. His IT secretary has been in the same department for the last six years. At the same time, he has not lost out on his career and is at the Chief Secretary level now.

Are there any lessons for Karnataka and other States? Prof Krishna believes there are collective lessons for the entire country. The hype around the software industry is so much, it will take care of itself. The hype has also created a large pool of manpower, all aiming to get into well-paying jobs in the software industry. But those who don't manage to do that are available for government ICT projects.

The Government should focus on what things are going to make a difference to people, in urban and rural areas, and work backwards what needs to be done. Young bright minds from the bureaucracy (the ones who are still idealistic) need to be trained in implementing ICT projects. The private sector needs to be roped in. Andhra Pradesh is already ahead by five years, according to Prof Krishna, and other States need to catch up soon.

chitphad@thehindu.co.in

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