Transforming the Government Digitally: Challenges and Opportunities

India is witnessing a great digital transformation today in all spheres of economy and society. Digital technologies are being deployed by both the public and the private sectors to increase efficiencies, transform business processes and deliver greater value to their stakeholders. The government has launched the ambitious Digital India programme with the goal of transforming the government and the economy using digital technologies.

How are these digital technologies going to impact governance in the coming decade? How are the existing business processes and public service delivery models going to change? What are the challenges to such a transformation? In this article, I examine these aspects with specific reference to the advent of the latest technologies such as cloud, big data, analytics, social media, mobile, automation, Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. Some of these technologies are rapidly becoming mainstream and are significantly impacting the industry and the way applications are being developed and deployed in various domains.

Some of these new technologies are already being used by the government to make the delivery of public services more efficient and improve the government-citizen interaction. For example, the Mobile Seva project of the Government of India has significantly improved access to public services by bringing a large number of them on the mobile platform. The Digital India programme has also made cloud as the platform of choice for many departments for efficient use of computing resources and quick deployment of applications. The government is also using social media effectively to communicate with the citizens and other stakeholders. MyGov.in platform is being used by many departments to solicit views of all stakeholders on various government programmes.

Can the other emerging technologies such as big data, analytics, automation, IoT, AI and robotics impact governance? The potential of these technologies to transform business models and bring new products and services is enormous. Industries in several sectors have already started using these technologies to increase efficiency, reduce costs and improve their customers’ experiences. For example, automation of repetitive and rule based tasks is causing a significant disruption in the information technology (IT) services industry causing fears of layoffs. Government processes can be reengineered to take advantage of automation to make the delivery of services more efficient and accessible. Similarly, robots can also be used to improve citizen interaction when people visit government offices for seeking information or availing services.

Big data and analytics are being used by a number of industries to generate new insights into consumer behavior and offer customized services. Government departments can also effectively use these technologies to analyze patterns in citizen demand for various services and tailor delivery mechanisms accordingly. Big data and analytics can also help the government in transitioning to a data driven and evidence-based policy environment to improve the quality of outcomes.

Internet of Things has the potential to lead to a truly connected world and enable real time responses to various events and situations. Missions such as smart cities can very effectively exploit IoT to deliver a truly seamless and connected urban infrastructure and improve the living experiences of citizens.

What are the enablers to such digital transformation of the government in future? There are four critical factors that can help the government in fully exploiting the emerging technologies to become more efficient and dramatically improve the quality of governance and delivery of services to citizens and businesses. First, the government must have a clear and long-term digital strategy aimed at taking full advantage of the potential of these technologies. The digital strategy must aim at end-to-end transformation of the entire business processes and not just the service delivery interface.

Secondly, leadership is critical to such a digital transformation of the government. Presence of leaders capable of understanding the full implications of the emerging technologies of the future and driving change within the organizations accordingly to transform business processes and public interface is extremely important. In India, this would require massive capacity building efforts at senior management levels across the government to prepare the leaders adequately. Government should also involve capable leaders from the private sector to drive this transformation.

Thirdly, achieving a government wide transformation would require massive capacity building and skilling of the government workforce. Presently, these capabilities are singularly lacking in government organizations despite recent efforts in this direction. Capacity building is required at all levels across the entire government and not just in the specialized units dealing with computerization.

Next, the government would also need to ensure that appropriate applications using the emerging technologies are developed and deployed effectively and used across various domains to derive the desired outcomes. This would entail creating and sustaining an organization wide digital culture and focus on change management to ensure that the entire organization is committed to digitally driven transformation.

Finally, such a massive programme would need the holistic involvement of all the stakeholders, in particular the citizens and businesses and the industry partners to succeed. The citizens and businesses, who are the primary beneficiaries, would need to enhance their digital literacy to take full advantage of a government wide digital transformation. The efforts being undertaken to make the citizens digitally literate under the Digital India programme augur well for such an endeavour in future.

What are the challenges that the government might face in making this transformation a reality? The key challenges include developing leadership and building workforce skills, finding adequate financial resources, addressing security concerns and developing a digital culture within the organization and amongst the stakeholders. The government would also need to put in place a suitable legal framework to drive the digital transformation. These challenges need to be adequately addressed to make this entire endeavour a success. The emerging technologies present a great opportunity for us to transform our governance digitally to make all services truly online, end-to-end, connected and integrated in the next decade. We must overcome the challenges in achieving this vision through strategic planning, devoting adequate resources, building capabilities at all levels, developing and deploying appropriate applications and involving all the stakeholders. We are the world leaders in IT and it is the right time that we take the lead to use these technologies for transforming the quality of governance in the country.

(The above article was originally published in the eGov Magazine in its July 2017 issue. It is available at: https://egov.eletsonline.com/2017/08/transforming-the-government-digitally-challenges-and-opportunities/).

Digital India: What Next?

A flurry of projects is being launched under the Digital India programme on a regular basis. Some of the major projects include the digital payments app BHIM, Government e-Market (GeM), Aadhaar linked e-Sign and digital locker, Mobile Seva, MyGov, Bharat Net, National Scholarship Portal and e-Hospital. Digital India is a very ambitious programme aimed at transforming India into a digitally empowered economy and knowledge society. It was approved in August 2014 with great expectations to usher the country in a new era of digitally driven growth and prosperity. How has the programme performed in its nearly three years of implementation and what lies next for it? What mid-course corrections, if any, can be made to enable it to achieve its desired outcomes in the future?

Digital India is centered on three key vision areas. The first element of the vision is to provide digital infrastructure to every citizen and create access points for delivering digital services. The second vision area focuses on providing access to government services on demand. The third vision area focuses on capacity building and empowering citizens so that they can become active participants in a digitally driven economy. The programme covers nine pillars of growth areas which include broadband highways, universal access to mobile connectivity, public Internet access programme, reforming government through technology, electronic delivery of services, information for all, IT for jobs, electronics manufacturing and early harvest projects.

The achievements under the programme have been noteworthy though the full impacts of the projects are yet to be realized. Under the Bharat Net project, optical fibre connectivity has reached over 75,000 panchayats, covering about 30% of all the panchayats. Government data centres and wide area networks have been established in almost all the states. Over 3 lakh common service centres (CSCs) to deliver government and business services have been established across the country. These CSCs cover over 1.72 lakh panchayats. The government has keenly pushed JAM (Jan Dhan, Aaadhaar and Mobile) to ensure financial inclusion. Aadhaar enrolment has crossed 112 crores while the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) has shown promising results in schemes like scholarships, PAHAL, public distribution system, MGNREGS and the National Social Assistance Programme. The Mobile Seva project has brought about a transformation in delivering government services through mobiles. Both Digital Locker and the MyGov platforms have over 40 lakh registered users.

Though the projects under Digital India have made a good beginning, it is clear that they are yet to achieve their desired outcomes considering the large population (especially in rural areas) and geographical expanse of the country. How can the programme achieve its full impact within the targeted timeframe? It must be realized that the penetration of e-governance services is still low in the country due to lack of ICT infrastructure and low digital literacy. Lack of local language support is also an important barrier. Further, the full potential of the mobile platform for delivering government services has not been realized and new technologies for enhancing the effectiveness of the applications, such as data analytics, Internet of Things and GIS, have not been exploited fully. The performance has also varied significantly across the states.

What can be done to enhance the effectiveness of the projects under Digital India? We must aim at enhancing the reach and impact of the projects with focus on rural areas and economically weaker sections. For this, the projects must aim at increasing both their scale and scope. While the scale involves enhancing both geographic reach and number of transactions, scope implies that the applications be made end-to-end involving completely paperless, faceless and cashless transactions. Mobile must be made the default access mode for applications to enhance reach and coverage and local language interfaces must be seamlessly integrated. The digital locker ecosystem must be expanded and large scale digitization of records initiated to make all transactions paperless. Similarly, for making all transactions faceless and cashless, Aadhaar should be made the primary mode of authentication and payments. The network of CSCs must be increased to cover every panchayat. We also need to focus on cybersecurity to ensure that our electronic infrastructure and transactions are safe and secured. Institutionally, all states and union territories must be brought on board as key stakeholders in implementation.

To truly enhance the reach of Digital India, we must develop digital villages and digital markets. A digital village would focus on connectivity and applications to provide services digitally in villages, such as tele-health, virtual classrooms and skilling and capacity building. A digital market would help in integrating the rural economy at regional and national levels and bring better remuneration to farmers and artisans.

Ensuring that every citizen is able to benefit from Digital India would require massive efforts at capacity building, especially in the rural areas and amongst women. Government and private organizations also need to enhance their capacities manifold at all levels to deliver their services digitally.

Digital India is transformational in its vision. However, we need to ensure that it reaches each and every Indian to truly achieve this vision.

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