Leading from the Front

The main reason for the low e-readiness score by India is that a very large
sector of the economy the gov-ernment departments-that can give an impe-tus to
IT, moves sluggishly

Taiwan, with a score of 7.3 out of 10, rates much ahead of other Asian
countries in e-readiness as per the Economic Intelligence Unit (the business
information arm of The Economist Group, London), while Japan made 6.9 and India
managed 4.5. The scores are based on fixed line connections, mobile phone
subscrip-tions, Internet usage, PC ownership and broadband penetration. In terms
of rank-ings, out of 64 countries, India is ranked at 46, Taiwan 20 and China
50.

One of the reasons for these scores and rankings is pace of adoption of e-governa-nce
or e-transactions in the government sector. If we take the example of Taiwan,
the Research Development and Evaluation Commission of the Taiwanese Cabinet
started pushing forward the government's backbone network way back in 1997.
All levels of government agencies were encouraged to set up their own websites
and provide information and services online. They were also asked to launch
Internet applications like e-documents and e-taxation. In 2002, e-governance was
listed as one of the pivots in the "e-Taiwan Prog-ram" launched as a
part of the six-year national development plan. The results are evident from the
fact that, in 2003, 75 percent of the government agencies had broad-band access
and 82 percent of them had their own websites. The penetration rate of e-mail
penetration among government staff is 88 percent. By 2003 itself, more than
500,000 electronic certificates had been issued to natural persons for
e-taxation, e-documents and e-procurement activities. Taiwan started to use
online taxation systems back in 1998 and as much as 15 percent of the total tax
declarations are on-line today. The country is now planning initiatives to
enhance the two-way communication between public and government and moving
towards a paperless economy. India has also been focusing on many e-governance
initiatives to induce a digital revolution in the economy. The IT Act of 2000
provides the basic legal and administrative framework for e-trade and should
promote it's growth. A Controller of Certifying Authorities has been
established. The four certifying authorities, two in the public sector (NIC,
STPI) and two in the private (TCS, Satyam) have been licensed to issue digital
signature certificates. To facilitate trade, a number of ports, specified banks
and other agencies have been connected digitally.

Exporters can now submit license applica-tions online. Also applica-tions
filed electroni-cally attract 50 percent lower processing fee compared to manual
applications. The income tax department has introduced online tax filing
systems. All these efforts, together with a more friendly telecom policy, have
served to set up a base for building a digital economy.

In spite of these efforts, even in compari-sons with other Asian countries,
India needs to move ahead faster. The main reason is that a very large sector of
the economy-the government departments-that can give an impetus to IT moves
sluggishly. While policies are formulated, the promotion of IT usage within
government departments could be a lot higher. Pilot projects are good and serve
as a proof of concept. But after that, the deployment across the country needs
to be accelerated. This is where the speed is too slow. While we have
experi-mented and developed relevant applica-tions their deployment is limited
to a few areas. Municipal corporations, tax colle-ction agencies, government
offices, panchayats, judiciary and all other forms of government agencies can
and should use more IT. These are the departments that have a direct impact on
the daily tasks of millions of people. Efficiency should not remain the
prerogative of the private and corporate sectors. After all charity begins at
home. And that truth is unlikely to change even on a digital planet.

Shyam Malhotra is the
Editor-in-Chief of Cyber Media publications (with inputs from Saswati Sinha)