Digital India for Inclusive India
SANJAY JAJU Jt. Secy, Dept. of Defence Production
Iwish to propound my own framework, which I call as 6I framework to realize the Digital India dream over the next decade. The first “I” has to be the digital Infrastructure. This entails sufficient availability of bandwidth for data movement until the last mile and an equally big virtual space for storing such data securely and strategically especially in a vast country like ours where regional disparities are significant.
The second “I” leads us to “instruments”, which comprises the devices and the electronic hardware eco-system. Almost the entire requirement of hardware in our country is currently being met through imports. With increasing focus being given to the development of smart cities and IoT devices, it’s essential that indigenous manufacturing capabilities get enhanced. The two main flagship programmes
now with local language transliteration tools, legible to even the so called illiterates. The use of social media has also changed the paradigm of digital literacy in our country.
The impact of these changes would in due course be felt by our democratic system and by implication on our electoral process. The experiences from the past good practices reveal that though champions may drive the IT initiatives, it’s the Institutions that sustain and take such practices forward. It is also important that a bottom-up approach is evolved while developing such projects. District e-governance societies headed by district collectors can act as a good pivot. It is also important that every government department including the offices of chief ministers and prime minister has a CIO to drive the change. A standard operating procedure, which simplifies and codifies such acts would help matters.
The last “I” would surely have to be the investments. There is a need to build revenue models that provide adequate gains to multiple stakeholders. There is also a need to ring-fence such investments so that the demand from the essentials does not crowd out this necessary requirement. Public Private Partnerships (PPP) and cost effectiveness of such investments would also need to be woven into such investments.
RAMAN ROY Chairman, Nasscom
Digital will really be the big driver for IT companies as this is the route most companies who are their customers are taking. The customers want to interact with them digitally and that means the software has to work and the industry out of India plays a big role in enabling digital but that requires a different skill set and as a part of our projections, we are seeing green shoots coming in. We are seeing the interest of our customers. The environment is changing. In Davos, there was optimism about where the global industry is going. When our customers see that optimism, their IT budgets increase. When the IT budgets increase, it is good news for us. So, we are seeing that and that is where the op- timism is coming in because there is a lag effect. Once they see the optimism, budgets come in, RFPs go out and people participate as well. So, there is a lag effect but there are green shoots as well.
There is an urgent need to relook the way education, especially related to maths, as it is at the heart of AI and Big Data. The majority of the youth in college have to improve their maths skills, otherwise India cannot stay ahead in the age of automation and robotics. India has the talent and can adapt to this changing need quickly. Once the mindset changes — when parents ask their kids to specialise in maths and statistics, for example — things will change quickly. Right now the focus is more on becoming an engineer rather than a specialist.
SHUBHODIP PAL CMO, Micromax
Technology is changing everything. Consumers today have access to information, validated by peers or even unknown people, who they trust with their vote of confidence while making a purchase decision. Technology has given rise to more conscious consumers. Brands like Micromax has a focussed approach towards the digital medium as well. We rake emotional responses and connect with a concept that translates to a connect with the brand and not the other way around.
Today, digital marketing industry in India is growing at its peak, and is still continuous. Many factors are responsible for this growth. The use of communication tools has greatly changed in the year past. No one ever thought to have a credible deal online. The belief was that online information is virtual information full of lies. No one could listen to any online advertisement not to talk of purchasing groceries, furniture or clothes. The story has really changed. Everything from marketing to sales can be done online. This is due to the trust that has been restored back to online communication in India. This has really helped the marketing initiatives. The revolution is from the communication industries. Low cost of handset is now available making it possible for India to have about 600 million internet users which ulti-
mately creates a fascinating business opportunity to sell to a growing population.
Moreover, the development in the digital marketing industry in India evident in the marketing shift from anonymity to identity. Interaction on the Internet now looks more physical as opposed to the anonymity of identity in the past. Also, marketing information’s is moving along in the same line with entertainment. People of India needed an exciting spirit always. This targets their interest into the marketing information.
Several factors have been found to contribute to the growth of digital marketing in India. Before now, internet usage was only meant for the wealthy. There is now a great change in the lifestyle of the middle class. The Very majority now have access to the internet in India. Internet and 3G penetration revolutionized the marketing scenario for both consumers and the marketers. It was discovered that changes in lifestyle and standard of living had increased the level of consumption, quality and also the pattern of consumption. The quality of use in the urban centers of India is on a high side. This is because majority doesn’t have time for shopping. Apart from struggles to earn money, people want some other things to be done at their own convenience.
GOLOK K SIMLI CTO, Passport Seva
The transformation at Passport Services has evolved clearly in three distinct phases – conceptualization & design, core transformation and continual evolution. The designing phase was aimed at carrying out process mapping, analysis and reengineering activities towards making the core processes more agile, transparent and effective. Earlier the clarity on where any citizen’s application is stuck was not available, the need was felt to make it more transparent so that there is increased responsibility and accountability in the system. The new process design started with the citizens’ needs and was reworked backward to build the process capability to serve them. The core transformation phase involved carrying out the changes at three levels – building physical Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs) going closer to the citizens, digitally enabling the processes and training the staff for increased ability to leverage the new capabilities. And the long term evolution involves a continual improvement to make the services better, effective and relevant to the citizens in India and work is in progress to enable the similar facilities abroad at Indian Missions/ Posts for delivery of Passport related services.
I think more and more E Governance initiatives must explore how they can leverage SMAC technologies for both creating better citizens’ experience and building process capabilities to serve them. And a converged play of multiple SMAC pillars will certainly be of great relevance. This is rather under explored so far.
I would like to highlight the converged play of ‘mobility in cloud’ as one of the key game changers in India. With more than a billion mobile phone subscribers in India and 34% of phones being smart phones, we have a huge scope for delivering E Governance on the mobile. The numbers are only going to rise with time. And when we look into mobile based service delivery, we cannot be content with traditional IT architecture. We will need to embrace multi tier architectures enabled by cloud technologies for agility, elasticity and efficiency. Though our traditional data centers may be good from the capacity point of view, they will need to become more responsive, something which can be done only by exploring cloud technologies.
ANIRUDH PODDAR Head – Digital Payments & Banking, Tally
Digital Inclusion, going by definition is the ability of individual or group of people to use ICT. But the delivery of ICT depends on the whole lot of other factors like infrastructure, skills etc, that also plays a part in digital inclusion. At Tally, we have been working and walking the digital path hand in hand with the nation for the last 30 years and been one of the digital adoption triggers in the country. Over the last 3 decades, we have taken a lot of in-
tentional choices and evolved with the times. It took us 30 years to reach a million users. But if we look at the recent developments in digital inclusion, in less than 6 months we were able to make 1.8 million businesses GST ready.
Our ability to be firmly grounded with the unique challenges in India, and creating unique solutions that are country-specific had made us a digital partner for many businesses across sizes. We have put in place an ambitious roadmap as we move along with the digital disruption. As businesses get disrupted, we are handholding them in many different ways. Today thanks to the online integrated compliant system through which one can file GST. We will also be connecting you with the bank and empowering the retailers. I think we are moving towards a more inclusive and more connected business network riding on digital.