|
|
George Mathew
|
Without giving adequate importance to rural infrastructure development the e-governance idea will not take off in our villages. Equally important is to train the village community in the new technology, its working and application. This involves a big investment in human resources.
The UNDP Human Development Report 2001 had stated that in the network age, every country needs the capacity to understand and adapt global technologies for local needs. That is to say, the farmers and firms need to master new technologies because today what is important is to unleash the creativity of its people.
The Human Development Report had emphasised the need for the creativity and enterpreneurship in countries like India for developing software for illiterate users and low-cost solar-powered wireless devices. This has resulted in community access proliferating in urban and rural settings. The multiple uses of information technology are made to enhance health facilities, education, raising the income of the poor families and, above all, peoples political participation.
It is important to note that the Human Development Report did recognise that information and communication technology can break barriers of human development in three ways: (i) Breaking barriers to knowledge because the Internet and worldwide web can deliver information to the poor and the rich alike. (ii) Breaking barriers to participation. The poor people and marginalised communities who were often isolated and had no means for collective action have got their global communication network power to hold governments more accountable. (iii) Finally, breaking barriers to economic opportunity. The information and communication technology has created potential for developing countries to create more jobs and diversify their economies as they need less initial investments. They are labour-intensive; they provide new jobs and wages for educated workers. How the new electronic information technology can contribute to good governance in our country, especially through the local government system Panchayats and municipalities?
A study of the recent developments of electronic governance and Panchayati Raj gives us an insight into the extraordinary possibilities ahead. In 1988, the then Union Minister for Communications, Ram Vilas Paswan, had stated that all Panchayats in the country would be provided with fully equipped communication centres. According to the Union Minister, investment in the infrastructure for these centres would be coming from the Rural Development Fund and the maintenance cost met through a levy imposed on private operators and the Department of Telecommunication (DoT). Soon, in November 1998, the Standing Committee of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) resolved to usher in the cyber age by connecting the MCD to the Internet. The aim was to make easier the exchange of information between the MCD and civic authorities of major international cities about civic works and amenities. Enquiries about specific cases could also be attended through the Internet, thereby reducing the rush of people at the MCD offices. Today, residents of Delhi receive on-line forms.
Mayor Shanti Desai launched the website of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) in August 2000. It was designed with the twin objectives of documenting all relevant information and keeping people informed of the MCDs activities. The website available in both Hindi (www.dillinagarnigam.com) and English (www. Municipalcorporationof delhi.com) has been developed by CMC Ltd., a Government of India undertaking. At present, it comprises 150 pages with an elaborate programme to connect zonal offices and headquarters through computers. Karnataka local bodies went in a big way for e-governance. In April 1999, the Bangalore Mahanagara Palika approached the European Commission for a Rs. 2 crore loan for the development of a computer-aided management system as well as an information and facilitation cell.
During this time, Bellandur Gram Panchayat, about 40 km away from Bangalore, successfully introduced administration through computers. Bellandur Gram Panchayat consists of five villages. There are two computers in the Panchayat office. The e-governance at the Panchayat level is the brain-child of the Panchayat president K. Jaganath. Before he stepped in, all the five villages were in a shambles. Their problems civic, financial and environmental were ignored by successive governments. Jagannath, the young president, took up his job as a challenge. First, he initiated measures to step up the collection of local taxes. Revenue increased from a mere Rs 60,000 in 93 to Rs. 25 lakh this year. With more funds available for development purpose, the Panchayat was in a better position to address peoples problems. A major task was to stop pollution of the village lake, which is one of the largest lakes in the region. Jagannaths campaign for cleaning the lake met with success with the Karnataka High Court directing the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewage Board to stop flow of sewage into lakes around the city. Jagannath now plans to set up a sewage treatment plant and an efficient garbage disposal system. Money would be no problem. I hope to raise enough resources at our own level, he asserts.
The computerisation of Panchayat records itself was achieved at Jagannaths own initiative with a corpus of Rs 70,000 raised locally. By pressing a key, a
resident of the village can have a look at all relevant data relating to the five villages; land holdings of each family, taxes due from them and the list of beneficiaries under various housing and employment schemes. Fresh applications for power and water connections are also computerised for disposal at the monthly Panchayat meetings. The paper work has been minimised as computer operators issue all receipts. It leaves the Panchayat staff free to attend other important duties.
The software for the Bellandur experiment has been developed by a Bangalore-based company COMPUSOL as a pilot project for assessing the feasibility of Net-based administration. This software would help knit together villages in remote areas through an inexpensive communication network. Bellandur Panchayat has already floated its own website complete with details of the Gram Panchayat. The Gram Panchayat will be elevated to a mandal Panchayat soon. Then, Jagannath plans to expand the network across 20 villages. Following Karnataka, the Kerala Government formulated a project for linking all local bodies through a community internet network. The project envisages providing access to Internet to all Gram Panchayats in the state.
Madhya Pradesh was not far behind. In September 1999, the Task Force appointed by the State Government suggested an expansion programme of information technology in the State. The committee recommended that all District Governments, Zilla Panchayats, Block Panchayats and Gram Panchayats should be computerised by the year 2003. This was with a view
to encouraging participation of rural people in the development process.
In January 2000, Chief Minister Digvijay Singh launched the Gyandoot project, opening the first rural cyber café of the state at village Dhehri Saryaya in Dhar district. As many as 21 such cyber cafes, named Suchanalayas (Information Centres), have become operational in five blocks of the district under the Gyandoot project. In Dhar, 311 Gram Panchayats have been connected through 21 such Suchanalayas. Information on prices of main agricultural produce in mandis, copies of Khasra and Khatoni for obtaining loans from the government and financial institutions and other purposes, online registration of public grievances and e-mail replies are provided through this network. The Zilla Panchayat has provided Rs. 25 lakh for the project and would receive as commission 10 per cent out of the income of these centres.
In March 2000, the National Informatic Centre (NIC) prepared a website on district governments (in fact, district planning committees) in Madhya Pradesh. All vital information about district governments has been made available on the Internet through the website http://www. mp.nic.in//jilasarkar. A decision was also taken to computerise the Urban Administration and Development Directorate as part of the state governments plan to promote use of information technology in government work. Detailed information relating to reservations and elections, administrative staff, income and expenditure, budget, taxation and recovery, movable and immovable property, basic facilities like water supply, cleanliness and street lighting, slum development plans, colonisation and fire brigade services in respect of all urban civic bodies would be fed into computers at the Head of the Department level.
In May 2001, addressing the CEOs of Zilla (District) Panchayats, the Minister for Panchayats and Rural Development of Madhya Pradesh had stated that computers would be made available to 200 Janpad (block) Panchayats also. A proposal to provide computers to the remaining 259 Janpad Panchayats has been forwarded to the central government.
A big recognition came for Gyandoot when in June 2000 it was awarded the Stockholm Challenge Award in the Public Service and Democracy category for taking the benefits of information technology to the grassroots.
The Gyandoot project was selected from a list of 600 entries and was acclaimed by the Jury as a new paradigm in IT. They recognised the achievements of Gyandoot: computers installed in the Gram Panchayats, providing easy access to over five million villagers to the latest mandi rates and information about governments various welfare schemes, land records and other documents; sending applications to the block and district level authorities through these computers to get caste, domicile and income certificates; linking the people and the district officials; and above all, registering any kind of complaint through e-mail.
The District Collector monitors all such complaints and takes corrective action. Coming to Haryana, it may be noted that the Fatehabad district was the first in the country in October 1999 to have a district computer network linking all sub-divisions, tehsils (administrative unit), sub- tehsils (administrative unit), blocks, municipal committees and district offices to a dual server installed at the district headquarters. It was also the first district to release a CD-ROM about its revenue data and the first in the state to have its own website on the Internet.
In the same month, it was reported that in an effort to encourage affluent, credit-card-happy house owners to pay taxes on time, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation introduced credit cards for payment of taxes. The cards, likely to be co-branded, might be used to pay all types of civic taxes. The other states that are doing significant work in the field of establishing and expanding e-governance include Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal. Uttar Pradesh has recently launched such a programme.
It is encouraging that the Panchayati Raj system in many states has adopted e-governance. But considering the vast size of our country it is only a beginning. How can we speed up this process? Will other states emulate these people-oriented best practices? Given the poor condition of our infrastructure-
telephone system, electricity, office cleanliness and infrastructure, monitoring and maintenance, etc. in the rural areas, what is the sustainability of the super technology? Will the Panchayats own them and maintain them? Therefore, a precondition is to develop the rural areas. Without giving adequate importance to rural infrastructure development the e-governance idea will not take off in our villages. Equally important is to train the village community in the new technology, its working and application.This involves a big investment in human resources. Are the states giving priority to this? Are the Panchayats capable of developing competence in these areas with their presently available resources?
While we recognise that e-governance will be a reality in the villages of tomorrow, all our Panchayats at the three levels and also the states need a master plan 2020 to meet the target. Some of our Panchayats have certainly gone ahead, but others still have to tackle basic issues of underdevelopment and resource constraint .
Author: George Mathew is President, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi, India.
|
