[Reader-list] News Items posted on the net on Multipurpose National Identity Cards-35

[Taha Mehmood]

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060319/spectrum/book4.htm

Tribune
Spectum

Sunday, March 19, 2006



Mission technology
Rajesh Kumar Aggarwal

The State, IT and Development
eds. R.K. Bagga, Kenneth Keniston and Rohit Raj Mathur. Sage
Publications. Pages 325. Rs 380.

Information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services (ITES) have
achieved record growth in recent years. While the number of telephone
and Internet users have increased manifold, software development and
earnings too have increased to a new high. However, the digital divide
between the rural and urban sectors, public and private sectors
continues.

The book has been divided into four sections—The Route to Development,
Challenges Before the State, ICT Initiatives in Developing India and
The Road Ahead.

The first section focuses intensively on good governance. It says that
governments are now gearing up to appear SMART (simple, moral,
accountable, responsive and transparent) and ICT (information and
communication technology) has an indispensable role in social,
economic and political development of the state. At the same time, the
book argues that ICT is not a substitute for good governance but it
can be an enabler of good governance.

President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in his paper, Vision of Citizen-Centric
E-Governance for India, visualises e-governance as "a transparent
smart e-governance with seamless access, secure and authentic flow of
information crossing the inter-departmental barrier and providing a
fair and unbiased service to the citizens". He says the primary data
requirement for effective e-governance is a national citizen ID card,
which should be a multi-purpose, secure and authentic, similar to the
photocopy of an individual, with multifactor authentication such as
photograph and biometrics-fingerprints, iris-based systems and digital
signatures.

The papers by Jayaprakash Narayan, E.A.S. Sarna and Sameer Sachdeva
and Rohit Raj Mathur advocate investment in ICT but cautions that such
investments should only be made rationally. It would be detrimental to
invest on computers in schools and hospitals, if these institutions
lack basic facilities such as proper buildings, blackboards, toilets
in schools and medicines, doctors and para-medicals in hospitals.

Even though ICT revolution is being perceived as the new engine of
growth, the second section of the book points that there are many
challenges before the state such as bridging the digital divide,
regulating framework to facilitate universal connectivity in India,
implementation of cyber laws, organising process documentation and
integration of e-governance. Moreover, there are challenges before the
state to combat corruption in public life. N. Vittal, former Central
Vigilance Commissioner, recounting his experiences, says ICT can act
as a powerful administrative tool that can bring corrupt acts of
individuals to the notice of the society at large with a much greater
impact.

R.K. Bagga highlights some of the critical messages for digitising
governments, which are important for government to business,
government to citizen, government to employee and government to
government (G2B, G2C, G2E and G2G) decisions.

The section three lists some of the ICT e-governance initiatives in
rural and urban India. These are eSeva and Saukaryam (meaning facility
in Telugu) in Andhra Pradesh and FRIENDS (Fast, Reliable, Instant,
Efficient Network for Distribution of Services), IKM (Information
Kerala Mission), and Akshaya (a project to spread mass computer
literacy at grassroots level) in Kerala.

The Road Ahead, suggests a bigger role for e-governance in overall
development of the nation. It advocates the creation of
micro-enterprises around technology, promoting public-private
partnership. The last paper by R.K. Bagga and Rohit Raj Mathur
summarises some very important recommendations based on the three ASCI
(Administrative staff College of India) workshops for G2B, G2C, G2E
and G2G groups, and records the suggested future action agenda.