Use JAM to Deliver Smart Services

With the launch of the Digital India programme in July 2015, a lot of expectations have been created in the country with regard to faster and more efficient delivery of electronic government services. Indeed, e-governance is one of the key pillars under the programme with the objective to ensure that all possible government services are delivered electronically in a seamless and end-to-end manner with comprehensive government process reengineering to make delivery simpler, paperless and more efficient.

How can this objective be achieved? In the current model of e-governance, almost all the services are being delivered by various government departments and agencies in silos through standalone applications with lot of duplication and little process reengineering, though there are some notable exceptions. The government websites and applications are also mostly not mobile compliant which makes it very difficult for mobile device (phones, tablets) users to access them. Online authentication of users and online payment of fees are also often missing. Payments to beneficiaries under various government schemes are also not made directly to their bank accounts except for some schemes. In short, most of the electronic services currently are not end-to-end.

To address this issue and make the e-government services really smart, the JAM trinity comprising the Jan Dhan Yojana bank account, Aadhaar platform and mobile phone can be used as the foundation for all e-government applications. JAM will help in making electronic services completely end-to-end by allowing a user to avail a service fully electronically without any need for physically visiting the concerned government office for submitting any identity proofs or supporting documents. How can this be accomplished?

First, all e-governance applications must integrate the Aadhaar platform for online authentication within their applications. This will eliminate the need for people to submit any physical identity and address proofs. With the recent approval of the Aadhaar bill, this platform has been provided a legal footing to allow it to be used for delivering a wide range of services. With over 100 crore Aadhaar numbers already issued, this step will go a long way in eliminating a lot of paperwork and hardship to the people.

Secondly, all e-governance applications must also incorporate the mobile platform for delivery of their services through mobile phones and tablets. With mobile penetration at a much higher level in the country than access to computers and internet, it is imperative that all electronic services are also delivered through mobile devices for greater accessibility. Already, the national Mobile Seva platform of Government of India has shown its utility by integrating the applications of over 2000 government departments and agencies across the country with its mobile based services. This must be extended to cover all e-government services in the country.

Thirdly, all the schemes where payments are made to the beneficiaries must incorporate bank account information in their applications so that money is transferred directly to their accounts. The bank accounts should also be linked to the Aadhaar platform for ease in authentication and payment as has been done for the LPG scheme. Various subsidy and pension schemes can all be transformed in this manner so that the benefits can reach the eligible beneficiaries directly without any hindrance or delay. This transformation will also yield substantial savings to the government as all the duplicate and ghost beneficiaries can be easily eliminated. This will also help in making all the financial transactions cashless and electronic.

In addition to the incorporation of the JAM trinity, some other measures are also required to make the services really smart. These include undertaking comprehensive process reengineering before introducing IT in governance, delivery of services through a cloud platform to avoid duplication in creating ICT infrastructure and applications and ensure that the ICT resources are efficiently utilized, incorporation of an online payment gateway, use of a digital locker to store and share government issued documents in electronic form and use of Aadhaar linked digital signatures to provide legal validity to the documents as per the IT Act. Already platforms for online payment, digital locker and Aadhaar linked e-sign have been created and made available for use by the departments. A national cloud platform is also readily available to be used. The main task now is to get all the government departments and agencies across the country on board these platforms. The recently approved e-Kranti or the National e-Governance Plan 2.0 framework of Government of India under Digital India incorporates all the above elements and holds great promise in ushering in a new era of smart services in the country. All the concerned stakeholders must utilize this opportunity to make the lives of citizens and businesses easier by making their services truly ‘smart’.

MSMEs: Prime Drivers of Make in India

Make in India is a very ambitious programme launched by the Government of India to transform the country into a global hub for manufacturing. The goal is to raise the share of the manufacturing sector in the economy from the current level of 16% to 25% by 2025. It targets 25 sectors of the economy ranging from automobile and aviation to textiles, tourism and hospitality. The government has taken a number of steps to achieve this goal including promoting foreign direct investment in new sectors such as defence, railways and medical devices and launching a number of sectoral programmes such as Digital India, Startup India, Standup India, Skill India, Smart Cities, etc.

Can the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) serve as the drivers of this programme? MSMEs have been recognized the world over as the prime drivers of innovation, economic growth and employment generation. In India too, the MSME sector is a vital part of our economy with over 6.30 crore enterprises providing employment to nearly 12 crore people. Over 99% of these units are in the micro sector with investments of less than Rs. 25 lakhs in plant and machinery. The MSMEs in the manufacturing sector, comprising around 1.97 crore units, produce over 7000 products, contribute over 7% to India’s GDP and account for around 45% of the total manufacturing output and over 40% of exports. In some sectors, such as auto components, leather goods, textiles and garments, engineering items and gems and jewellery, Indian MSMEs have acquired global competitiveness. Thus, MSMEs have great potential to enhance the manufacturing sector’s contribution to our economy. How can this potential be realized?

At an operational level, MSMEs face several challenges that need to be addressed to make them more competitive and efficient. These challenges pertain to five main areas: access to finance, availability of skilled labour, access to quality infrastructure and latest technologies, and forward linkages to markets. Access to credit at reasonable interest rates without collateral remains one of the foremost challenges that affect the operational viability of MSMEs. Recent schemes such as the Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGFTMSE) and the Mudra Yojana to provide collateral free loans aim at easing the access to credit for this sector. However, access to collateral free credit remains a major issue for a large number of MSMEs due to non-uniform implementation of the schemes. This needs to be addressed immediately.

Availability of skilled labour is another critical need for this sector. The country can reap the demographic advantage of its young population only when skilling of the working age people is taken up on a massive scale. Programmes such as Skill India aim at addressing this requirement and MSMEs are expected to benefit from this programme in a big way.

Access to quality infrastructure is another major area of concern that needs to be addressed to reduce the cost of operations for the MSMEs and make them more competitive. Internationally, cluster development approach has been shown to be the most effective in providing both soft and hard infrastructure to this sector. These include common facilities such as effluent treatment plants, utilities (water, power, communications, etc.), access to technology, research and development (R&D), testing centers, markets, finance, upgradation of skills, etc. Though we have adopted this approach in a large number of MSME clusters around the country, we need to further enhance our cluster development strategy in line with the international best practices. In addition, specific schemes for encouraging innovation, improving quality, R&D and upgradation of technology by the MSMEs would be very helpful in making them internationally competitive.

Access to markets is another critical area of concern for this sector. Recent initiatives such as the new public procurement policy mandating that all central ministries and PSUs procure at least 20% of their annual purchases of products and services from the micro and small enterprises and the new Defence Procurement Procedure for promoting domestic manufacturing of defence products with a focus on MSMEs are aimed at addressing this concern. However, developing export competitiveness and access to global markets remain formidable challenges for the MSMEs that need to be addressed through specific long term strategies.

Developing a vibrant startup ecosystem in the country is vital to the success of Make in India. We must recognize that holistic success of Make in India depends not only on domestic manufacturing but also on indigenous design and development capabilities. Though India has the third largest startup ecosystem in the world, a large part of it is focused on the emerging technologies space. We need to devise specific strategies to promote innovative startups in design, development and manufacturing.

A number of factors relevant to the success of programmes like Make in India are captured in the overall ‘Ease of Doing Business’ (EoDB) parameters in the country. India has shown a remarkable improvement in the latest EoDB ranking by the World Bank, rising 30 places to be ranked within the top 100 countries. However, more steps need to be taken to address the challenges that the MSMEs face in the country as noted above. The MSMEs are well poised to exploit the huge opportunities that programmes like Make in India have opened up in the country. We need to provide a supporting policy environment to make them realize their potential.

(The above article was published in Deccan Chronicle on April 16, 2018.)

Reforms in Frontline Bureaucracy Hold the Key to Better Public Services

Recently, the government has launched a number of initiatives aimed at spurring economic growth and improving the delivery of public services in the country. The ambitious ‘Make in India’ and ‘Digital India’ programmes are aimed at achieving these goals. In this context, a number of steps have been initiated to reform the bureaucracy to ensure better performance and accountability. However, these reforms are mostly aimed at higher and middle level bureaucrats with the assumption that reforming these layers would automatically translate into better performance from the frontline public servants who are at the cutting edge of service delivery and come in direct contact with the citizens, e.g., in tehsil, block and panchayat offices, public distribution system outlets, primary health centres, etc.

Can public policy goals be achieved without paying adequate attention to improving the working conditions and performance of these frontline public servants? These workers interact directly with the citizens in the course of their work and exercise substantial discretion in the execution of their responsibilities. The way they behave and perform significantly affects the delivery of services and perception of quality of governance in the minds of the people. The actions of these workers effectively become the public policies being implemented by the government. It can be said that public policy is actually made in the daily activities of these workers. They often exercise discretion in carrying out their responsibilities, giving rise to agency issues in their performance. However, their actual performance is heavily dependent on their working conditions. They are often faced with low resources and high expectations from both the public and their superiors. It may also be difficult to measure their performance as goal expectations may be vague or conflicting. They may also not be receiving adequate training or guidance in implementing new policies or rules and their incentives may not be aligned with the changes that are sought to be enforced from the top. This issue is particularly relevant in the age of information and communication technologies (ICTs) where they are expected to become IT-savvy to help in implementing a number of citizen-centric e-governance services.

Therefore, it is clear that if public policy is to become effective, frontline workers must be taken fully on board. We must recognize that focusing on frontline workers offers an alternative, bottom-up approach to improving implementation on the ground. They should be central to any reforms. For example, if the delivery of health services is to improve significantly, the frontline ASHA workers must dramatically improve their performance. How can these public servants be made to perform better and held accountable?

First, we must recognize that frontline workers can be a source of great innovation and administrative entrepreneurship by properly channeling the flexibility and discretion that they enjoy. Providing them with adequate resources and building their capacities to function effectively in the present IT age can encourage and motivate them to innovate in their work and become effective instruments for implementing public policy on the ground. Improving capacities and harnessing their local knowledge in improving the citizen interface will also make the work more meaningful for the workers themselves.

Secondly, empowerment and participation of citizens in governance and demand side pressures from the end users are crucial in improving the performance of these workers. As these workers directly interact with the citizens, participation of citizens and end-users can help in effectively improving the quality of service delivery and accountability.

Thirdly, government must aim at using ICTs effectively in all domains at the cutting edge of service delivery to ensure that services are provided uniformly and according to pre-defined quality standards to all citizens. The Digital India programme aims, inter alia, at precisely this goal and must be made a cross-cutting endeavour across all government ministries and departments. Capacity building of the frontline workers in deploying ICTs holds the key to improving public service delivery. For example, if ASHA workers can be trained to use a hand held tablet to collect data on patients and diseases in villages and transmit them in real time so that timely treatment could be planned and delivered through the primary health centres, it would revolutionize public health care system in the country.

Fourthly, it is often seen that these workers routinize their work and ration the services as a way of coping with inadequate resources, capacity and pressures. Regular audits on the quality of service delivery can be an effective way to reducing the discretion of these workers in the implementation of public policies and delivery of services. It is evident that the actions of frontline workers constitute a key part of how the overall quality of governance is perceived by the people. They also play a vital role in reaching ‘hard to reach’ groups, such as those living in remote villages or tribal communities. It is important that we recognize the need for reforming this layer of bureaucracy so that implementation of public policies and delivery of services can be improved from ‘bottom-up’. We must focus the content of reforms at these workers to bring in effective change in the quality of governance on the ground.

The above article was originally published as “Take Frontline Workers on Board to Make Public Policy Effective” in Deccan Chronicle on March 18, 2016. The views are personal.

Sustaining Digital India: Converting Hype Into Reality

The Digital India programme has created a lot of expectations both within and outside the country. The high profile launch of the programme in July 2015 and the subsequent pronouncements by the prime minister have given rise to high expectations that India will embrace a path of technology led transformation across all sectors of the economy and society.

How can these expectations be realized and sustained and the vision of Digital India achieved? It is important to understand that Digital India cuts across all sectors of governance, economy and society and is, therefore, very vast in its scope and objectives. Its vision is centred on three key areas: digital infrastructure for every citizen, providing governance and services on demand and digital empowerment of citizens. The programme broadly covers nine pillars of key thrust areas, namely, broadband highways, universal access to mobile connectivity, public internet access programme, e-governance – reforming governance through technology, e-Kranti – electronic delivery of services, information for all, electronic manufacturing, IT for jobs and early harvest programmes. Each of these pillars requires massive and sustained efforts to ensure that the desired objectives are met.

A massive thrust to create digital and connectivity infrastructure reaching up to the village level is required to achieve universal access to digital services and bridge the digital divide. Access to broadband connectivity at village level would ensure that transformation through increasing digitalization in various domains can really benefit the entire population. Universal access to mobile connectivity can make last mile connectivity and mobile broadband affordable for the masses. Implementation of the BharatNet project and the rollout of 3G and 4G connectivity across the country must be speeded up to achieve these objectives.

The public internet access programme is aimed at universalizing access to common service centres. While increasing the number of such centres to cover every panchayat is important, it must be kept in mind that the bouquet of services being offered through these centres needs to be enlarged and made affordable. For example, education and skill development courses can be delivered through these centres in partnership with the private sector to benefit the rural youth and make these centres financially sustainable.

The two pillars on e-governance, namely, reforming government through technology and electronic delivery of services, require cross-sectoral and whole-of-government initiatives to really transform governance through technology. Common platforms like Aadhaar for de-duplication and online authentication, Mobile Seva for mobile phone based delivery of services, digital locker for online storage and sharing of government issued documents, and e-Sign for Aadhaar based online digital signature are laudable initiatives in this direction. However, massive efforts are required to ensure that these platforms are adopted by all departments both at the central and state levels to make the electronic delivery of services more efficient and avoid any duplication. The services of various departments must also be integrated at the backend using these common processes and platforms to ensure that the citizens are not required to visit multiple portals and fill multiple forms with similar information to avail various services. Single sign-on mechanism must also be made mandatory for various portals to make the life of netizens easier. These initiatives would also transform the currently available services for businesses and help in improving the ease of doing business in the country.

The pillar on information for all aims at providing all information online and use of social media for interaction with the citizens. This requires much greater transparency and openness on the part of the government departments and use of tools like open data platform and social media to allow much greater participation of citizens in governance. Initiatives like data.gov.in and MyGov.in are steps in the right direction. However, very few states are using these platforms. All states must adopt them to really have an impact on governance at the cutting edge.

Domestic electronic manufacturing is a key pillar of Digital India. The target under this pillar is to achieve net zero imports in electronic hardware by 2020. Recently, a number of incentives have been announced by the government to encourage domestic manufacturing in electronics. Duty structure on electronic components has also been rationalized to incentivize domestic manufacturing. However, the country is yet to see major investments in this area. Developing a localized ecosystem for domestic electronic manufacturing is a must to sustain the momentum.

IT for jobs is a very important pillar of Digital India that aims at skill development of the youth and digital empowerment of citizens. Coordinated efforts are required in this domain along with the various skill development programs being run by other ministries to achieve the objective of universal digital empowerment. Participation of the private sector would be crucial to ensure quality content and sustainable delivery.

Digital India is a visionary programme with a huge potential for technology led transformation of the country. However, sustaining the programme and achieving its vision require concerted efforts by all the stakeholders including the central government, all the states and the private sector.

(The author is a senior IAS officer with the Government of Tamil Nadu. He has led the conceptualization and implementation of the Digital India programme while he was serving as Joint Secretary in the Department of Electronics and IT. The views are personal.)

The above article was originally published on February 14, 2016. It is available here:

https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/in-other-news/140216/sustaining-digital-india-converting-hype-into-reality.html

Making Chennai The Next Silicon Valley

Chennai today ranks amongst the top five most productive metro areas of the country with an estimated GDP of around $60 billion at purchasing power parity. It has a broad industrial base in the automobile, information technology (IT) and IT enabled services (ITES), electronic hardware, financial services and healthcare sectors. It is also rated amongst the top ten fastest growing cities in the world and hosts a large number of Fortune 500 companies. In the IT-ITES sector, Chennai occupies a pride of place in the country, perhaps next only to Bangalore.

How has the city developed its IT industry in the last two decades? Can the industry develop further in the city to make it the next Silicon Valley? The roots of the IT industry in the city can be traced to the late 1980s when a few software firms were founded locally to cater to the software operations and maintenance needs of the local manufacturing firms. The growth of the industry remained limited till the mid-1990s when there were only 34 software exporting firms in the city. However, during this period, two multinational companies (MNCs) started operations here sowing the seeds for the city to become a major centre for MNCs in the years to come.

The state policies during this period for attracting large industries played a prominent role in the development of the industry. The central government also established a Software Technology Park in the city under the STPI scheme in 1995. A major policy initiative of the state for the IT sector came in 1997 with the promulgation of the state’s first IT Policy that focused on creation of IT Parks in the city. During this period, the state focused on creating the physical infrastructure and improving the availability of skilled personnel through technical education. Subsequently, there was greater focus on attracting the large multinational and national companies to the city.

The state announced its second IT policy in 2002 which focused on the small and medium enterprises (SMEs), promotion of the state as the destination of choice, e-governance and taking IT to the rural areas. Availability of land and developed infrastructure in the city and the surrounding areas were critical drivers to the growth of the industry. Development of the IT Corridor along the Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR) provided a major boost to the IT industry in the city. Mahindra World City, a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) near Chennai has also provided a major boost to the development of the IT industry. ELCOT has also played a prominent role in supporting the development of the IT industry in the city and the entire state by developing IT parks and offering land to the IT firms. The state announced the third ICT Policy in 2008 which provided a further boost to the growth of the industry. Today the city is home to a large number of multinational and national firms in this sector such as Accenture, Cognizant, Capgemini, Oracle, HCL, HP, IBM, Infosys, Microsoft, Oracle, TCS, Tech Mahindra, Wipro, etc.

The Chennai metro area is also home to a large cluster of electronic hardware manufacturing firms, particularly in the Sriperumbudur electronics SEZ with the presence of major multinational corporations like Dell, Cisco, Samsung, Siemens, Sony-Ericsson, Flextronics, etc. It is estimated that this sector alone has attracted investments worth about US$3.5 billion in the city. With easy availability of high-quality infrastructure and skilled personnel, the city has the potential to develop further into a global hub for the IT-ITES industry and become the next Silicon Valley.

The above article was originally published on August 27, 2017. It is available here:

https://www.deccanchronicle.com/opinion/op-ed/270817/making-tamil-nadus-capital-city-the-next-silicon-valley.html