e-KRANTI
Background:-
Government of India accords highest priority to the Digital India programme that is an umbrella programme for transforming India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. The pillars of Digital India programme, namely ‘e-Governance: Reforming Government through Technology’ and ‘e-Kranti – Electronic Delivery of Services’ respectively are directly linked to the e-Kranti: National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) 2.0. The implementation of e-Kranti is vital for Digital India and for the delivery of e-governance, easy governance and good governance in the country.
Vision and Mission:-
- “Transforming e-Governance for Transforming Governance”
- “To ensure a Government-wide transformation by delivering Government services electronically to the citizens through integrated and interoperable systems via multiple modes, while ensuring efficiency, transparency and reliability of such services at affordable costs”
Principles of e-Kranti:-
- Transformation and not Translation :- This principle emphasizes that , the programs must not merely translate itself from document or Pen and Paper service to Digital service, it must transform itself, so that the end-user(Public) could get hassle free access to government services.
- Integrated Services and not Individual Services:- More often than not ,we have come across issues where various departments of Governments work in silos and there is rarely any co-ordination among them, instead the coordination part rests upon the individual who wants certain services.This give the space for corruption and bribery is paid to move a file from one department to another. But this principle is trying to change that by integrating the departments , making file movement digital , hence coordination part rests upon the departments and not on the beneficiary.
- Government Process Re-engineering :-Elimination of Non-Value-Adds,process optimization,Standardization, Automation and Self service
- Cloud by Default :-Government Cloud as default cloud for services and no requirement of separate infrastructure set up for any service.Government cloud service known as – Meghraj
- Mobile First :- Making services available via Mobile phones
- Mandating Standards and Protocols
- Language Localization
- Security and Electronic Data Preservation
E-Kranti as Part of Digital India :-
National e-Governance Plan:-
Make all Government services accessible to the COMMON MAN IN HIS LOCALITY, through Common Service Delivery Outlets and ensure EFFICIENCY, TRANSPARENCY & RELIABILITY of such services at AFFORDABLE COSTS to realise the BASIC NEEDS of the common man.
Key Components of NeGP:-
- Integrated Service Delivery Platform
- Mission Mode Projects (MMPS)
- Core ICT Infrastructure
Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats:-
NeGP vs e-Kranti :-
CAPEX-Capital Expense , OPEX-Operating Expense
Why e-Kranti :-
- Need to exploit Emerging Technologies
- Cloud
- Mobile Platform- Smart phones, Tablets
- Geo-Spatial Information System
- Big Data Analytics
- Avoid risk of obsolescence
- Need for introducing more agile implementation models
Institutes and Instruments :-
- National e-Governance Academy
- e-Governance Knowledge Portal
- Create e-Governance Impact Index
- Effective use of Social Media
Few Projects related to e-Kranti:-
- e-Sansad
- e-Vidhaan
- Roads and Highways Information System (RAHI)
- Agriculture 2.0
- Common IT Roadmap for Para Military Forces
- e-Bhasha
- Urban Governance
and Many More.
Analysis:-
- Indian IT sector growth is a result of capitalist market forces combined with abundant and cost-effective human resource availability.
- India over decades built the strengthen in IT sector and it is high time that the Government of India utilizes it to deliver the services.In this regard the e-Kranti is an welcome step.
- However , the major concern is the state of our education and dismal literacy rate which hampers the adoption of technology by masses. More so, IT is a sophisticated platform where many a time even the literate ones unable to transact properly.That means, majority of Indians does not have “digital literacy” , hence there is a social resistance to adopt this services.
- In the absence of digital literacy , many take the help of so called “Middle Man” to get the job done.This in turn , hampers the whole idea of e-governance, because one of its primary focus is self-service and eliminate middle man . Instead, it gave rise to a different kind of middle man altogether in India.
- Frauds are rampant and innocents are getting caught in the trap. The trap also engulfs the literate too.
- Hence, it is high time , literacy and digital literacy should be separated.
- The good part is , digital literacy only demands few protocols to be followed and once it is communicated and demonstrated properly , it may serve the purpose.
- Another revolutionizing idea is the localization of language, thus letting people transact with their own language. This gives fillip to the e-Kranti altogether.
- Thought , there may be an initial hesitance for adoption of technology , however with time, this will vanish and with it the middle man also will vanish.
- The next trouble is the Infrastructure part.Digital infrastructure is a costly affair and requires huge investment. Moreover , given the status quo of many services and rampant call-drops , dismal network services across India, this still seems like a dream.
- The call cost of India may be then lowest, but the data charges are one of the highest.Often one hears the consumer complain on awful data services.Network should search the phone and connect , instead People are searching for networks (sometime on the roof and sometime on the mountain)
- Hence , e-Kranti to succeed , the digital infrastructure should be accessible and affordable , else we will be left will high-end applications but no end-users.
On the conclusion, though, digital infrastructure is a competitive market and given the market capitalization and presence of healthy competition , right push and policies can troubleshoot these problems , there by making e-Kranti a grand success.
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.