Mobile for Governance and Citizen Services

Chairperson : Suraj Kumar, Chief Mentor, Neeti Foundation, New Delhi

Panelist : Meeta W. Sengupta, Founder, Centre for Education Strategy

Jury Expert : Soumya Sarkar, National Editor, Mint

Moderator : Charru Malhotra, Assistant Proffessor (e-Governance and ICT), Indian Institute of Public Administration – IIPA

Name of the Rapporteur :  Pawas Suren

Abstract

Suraj Kumar, Chairperson, opened the session by speaking about the digital divide in India. He drew the attention of the audience and the speakers by telling giving figures on the total population of India, the number of mobile sets used, and the total number of population accessing internet through mobile phones. He requested the speakers and the audience to have a discussion on the basis of practical experiences of the people.

1. Presentations by the Finalists

• Michung Bhutia started with a brief introduction and showed a short film of about 2 to 3 minutes on the work being done by Demi Solutions. He explained with the help of the film that digitization of documents was a cumbersome process, requiring 2-3 minutes to scan a single page. The challenge was overcome with the use of mobile phones and tablets held overhead with the help of a stand. Now, the scanning of a page takes less than a couple of seconds. Using appropriate software, the individual scans are combined and made into readable book form. The mobile phones and tablets are handy, and can be carried to distant places which are difficult to access and do not have any power supply.
• In the absence of Manish Pandit, the MP Commercial Tax department was represented Yogesh. In the presentation, he highlighted 6 fold increase in the revenue raised by MPCTD during 2010-15. The use of e-governance facilities gives the benefit of both web portal and application module. The Office of Commissioner Commercial Tax (CCT) MP is divided into 5 zones, 15 divisions, 80 circle offices and 32 check posts. Now, registration, return and verification was possible online with the facility to download, fill and submit statutory forms such as C, F, H, E1, E2, 49 and 60 with digital signature, and without any extra charges for online submission. The Green Channel facility enables the transporter to fill the required forms online and avoid furnishing details at the checkposts. The dealers, drivers and all concerned persons are notified through SMS regarding status of Policy/Act changes, Registration Status and other processing stages.
• On behalf of Mr. D. L. P. Rohana Abeyaratne, Mr. Damikar, Suprintendent ICT, Sri Lanka Post, addressed the session. He inscribed the use of M-ePay, a mobile application, by the postmasters to simplify financial transactions including payment of electricity and telecom bills. The Sri Lanka Post has 654 Post Offices in the cities and 3410 Sub-Post Offices in the rural areas. The mobiles with the App are with the Post Masters in the Sub-Post Offices. The App can also work in the offline mode and synchronizes the data with the main server when it enters the network zone.
• Mr. Pradeep Majumdar spoke for CSM Technologies Pvt. Ltd. in the absence of Mr. Abhinav Thakur. He elucidated on Mobile Governance Project for systematizing paddy procurement and custom-milled rice delivery at critical points. The project was envisioned with the development of Master Data of all the stakeholders and followed by unique coding system for each stakeholder. The use of mobile phones has reduced the information gap, and has made possible real time monitoring of paddy procurement figures at district and state levels. The Transparent Portal shares the latest information all the stakeholders.
• I. K. Pateriya , from CDAC, spoke on the use of mobile phones in the monitoring of the work accomplished through National Rural Road Development Organization under PMGSY. In the last 15 years, the organization has build 4.5 lakh Kms of rural roads. The features of geo-tagged photographs made quality monitoring simple and effective for the three tier monitoring system.
• Sunil Jain from National Informatics Centre (NIC) explained about GIS@School. The Madhya Pradesh School Department and NIC designed, developed and implemented “School Geo-Mapper” App. This Android based App helps capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage and present all types of geographical data and geo-tagged photographs of various facilities and other infrastructure in school. The School Geo-Mapper app can be installed in any GPS enabled android smart phone, fablets and tablets. The web interface of the app allows seeing Geo-tagged schools and enables Geo-spatial queries for planning and management. The app is being used by Sub-engineers, Block Resource Coordinators, Block Academic Coordinators, Janshikshaks and teachers to capture and upload information in the education portal by registering themselves. The portal records the unique ID of individuals, IMEI number of the device and mobile number of the SIM in the device used for uploading geo-tagged information.
• Rahul was the last speaker and he dialated on MobileOne. He spoke in the absence of Ratan Kelkar, IAS, Chief Executive Officer, Centre for e-Governance, Government of Karnataka. The App is useful for everyone – from a farmer to the CEO of a big company – the application works even on basic phones through integrated voice response (IVR), SMS or mobile Web by dialing 161. The App has 4500 servces integrated in to it and delivers services from both government and the private sector.

2. Comments by Panelists/Audience

Soumya Sarkar acknowledged the edge of Sri Lanka over India in using ICT for service delivery. Meeta Sengupta asked Yogesh about the time taken to train people and appreciated the transfer of knowledge from one person to another. Sarkar praised Majumdar and his team in trying to stop leakages in the Public Distribution System. Prof. Charu commented on the replicability of MABQMS developed by CDAC as the icing on the cake. Mr. Vishal from Bharat Petroleum commented on futher improving the efficiency of data digitization by Demi Solutions. Mr. Buddha from the audience inquired Mr. Sunil on the validity of teachers attendance through the mobile application. In resonse, Mr. Sunil replied that it not only makes teachers attendance stringent, but also gives flexibility to the teachers to report problems faced by them and give access to crucial information required by them.

Ms Sengupta concluded the session by requesting everyone to think in the line of: affordibility; accessibility and availability of the Apps being used and developed. She reiterated that it’s not just about last mile, but also about first mile.