The Hindu : Implementation key to success in e-governance

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 27, 2003

Business

Business

Implementation key to success in e-governance

By P. Vikram Reddy

HYDERABAD NOV. 26. While `concept, implementation and marketing' are the three vital ingredients in the chain that contribute to making the adoption of any innovative initiative a success, `implementation' is the most crucial. This aspect has been reiterated more than once by e-governance experts to nations and States going through the pangs associated with implementation, even as they struggle to cope with imbalances created by increasing demand for services and the need to scale up infrastructure to meet these new requirements.

Implementation is the most crucial aspect for the success of e-governance initiatives, reiterates Dominic Scott, principal consultant or head of Cisco Systems' E-Government Initiatives for Asia Pacific, adding "If you fail on the implementation front, people will blame the concept itself.'' Speaking to The Hindu here, Mr. Scott, who is happy with the developments in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka on the e-governance front, said "Asian countries should look upon A.P. and Karnataka'' for the initiatives taken by them. These States were not lagging but leading despite implementation hurdles, he felt adding, "Andhra Pradesh can be proud of its accomplishments in e-governance. It is exciting to see the speed with which e-governance is being implemented. It is encouraging (for the concept).''

"It would be unfair to compare countries. Pace (of implementation) has to be set by individual countries. For, too fast (implementation) can cause problems just as too slow can. Each economy has to set its own pace,'' said James S. L. Yong, senior director of the Singapore based NCS Pte (also Cisco partners in Singapore), and author of the book `E-Government in Asia.'

In an interaction with this correspondent here, Mr. Yong said the world over many governments had crossed the `concept hurdle,' and that e-governance as a concept was now generally accepted. He conceded that during implementation of e-governance projects, most countries experienced the problem of matching growth in capacities with growth in traffic (transactions).

Surprisingly, however, not much awareness seems to have been created on the economics of e-governance projects. But then there may be inherent compulsions. In Andhra Pradesh, Cisco has implemented the `eSeva' project wherein it connected 18 citizen utility services like bill payments, and property tax payments among others.

Talking of the `next wave' of e-governance projects and technology that may make it even more viable, Mr. Scott pointed to the wireless local area network (WLAN) deployed by it in Guntur District Collector's office, which is connected to the A.P. State Wide Area Network (APSWAN). This cuts down costs involved in dialup network or going for leased lines by digging trenches. The Guntur project was taken up as a pilot project. Similar wireless technology will be adopted soon for six more districts in Andhra Pradesh, and eventually 11 more. Cisco had also implemented a `wireless umbrella' project for the Chinese Government, which was focused on improving tax and customs duty collections, he said. And now China is also looking at a `rapid emergency system' to handle situations like that caused by SAARS.

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