‘Let thy actions speak louder than thy words’ was the message from the recently held ‘India @ Work Summit’ organised by Skoch Consultancy Services Pvt. Ltd. from 27th - 28th October, 2004 . The summit was focused on the issue of delivering equality, growth and social justice using Information and Communication Technology (ICT). While the country tasted the success stories of e-Governance projects like ‘Bhoomi’, it also has some long forgotten projects like ‘Gyandoot’. So the contentious questions here were: What is it which is holding such endeavours back and where is the gap happening? While inaugurating the meet, the Petroleum and Natural Gas and Panchayati Raj Minister, Mani Shankar Iyer, spoke on the grassroot governance and how ICT can help.

Some emerging e-Governance stories
The optimistic bit of the summit was the emerging e-Government case studies, showcased over a span of two days. It talked about Assam, which is littered with Community Information Centres (CICs) – the hub for e-Governance activities. Rajiv Gandhi Computer Literacy programme is another endeavour to bring about mass level computer literacy. The project aims to take at least 630 higher secondary schools across Assam into its fold in partnership with National Institute of Information Technology (NIIT).

Uttaranchal’s project ‘Aarohi’, an e-Learning project for school children, is another success tale. Another remarkable project going on in Uttaranchal is ‘Shikhar’, covering the mountainous areas around Nandadevi, to diffuse knowledge of flaura and fauna resources around this area.

Further, Gulshan Rai, Executive Director, Education and Research Network (ERNET), talked about the ERNET model, which connects premier educational institutions and research scholars and organisations via Internet. It also has a digital library with about 52,000 books accessible only to the ERNET inhouse/registered users. In a recent development, the European Union offered

ERNET to connect to the European educational grid. Moving on, ERNET also plans to extend this partnership to the United States. The portal is also in the process of migration into IPV6 backbone which will solve issues on content management. Further, University Grant Commission (UGC) is planning to enable content in the form of video clips. This entire content will be available on ERNET on demand.

According to the ‘Skoch e-Governance Report Card 2004, the spending on e-Governance project has gone up by 25 per cent from Rs 1,500 annually in 2002 to Rs 2,200 expected this year. However, for every project that is working well, there are perhaps even more that have simply failed to take off. According to inputs received by Skoch round tables, at least 30-35 rural ICT projects are in doldrums today. The summit has brought up the issues, which such project face in the way of their rolling out and the possible means to counter such blocks.

Facing the citizen: Turning G to C 180 degree
The Director General, National Informatic Centre (NIC), N Vijayaditya’s ‘Turning G to C (government to citizen) 180 degree’ perspective was surely a blockbuster in the meet. He talked about a situation where it is not the citizen but the government, which tries to fit into the lives of the citizens. Under his ‘re-orientation of G to C’ proposal, the government should act only as a facilitator where citizens would rely more on self-service. He calls for a total replacement of appropriate government with appropriate governance with citizen centric web enabled public grievances system, which will increase the receipt of appeals by the government.

Thriving in chaos
Pankaj Agarwal (Joint Secretary, Department of Science and Technology), touched the most ticklish point. He agreed that today ICT is a major tool towards development which can bridge the gap between haves and have-nots. But the question here is, are we ready to accept the possibilities of errors that come with an ICT project? According to world reports, 85 per cent of ICT/e-Governance projects fail. Also there is too much of intermediation between the consumer of information and information itself.

What emerged from the summit?
The conference ended with unanimity on one particular point, that is, Information Technology is only a means to achieve good governance and not an end in itself. Other points include:

• Public-private partnership is essential.
• Localisation of every project is very important.
• Need the will in government for transparency in terms of G to C
• Creation of an efficient communication organisation