E-solutions cannot take place of efficiency, integrity & intelligence

The CoWIN App crashed during the first couple of days of the inoculation drive. Why must a website crash, or an app malfunction?

India has prided itself on its IT (information technology) skills. It believes that it can become the world’s outsourcing hub for technology, e-commerce and e-solutions. Hah!

It allows transactions to take place within a fraction of a second but takes months or even years to register or resolve disputes related to such complaints. There is as yet no regulator for e-commerce and e-solutions.

The market could be bigger – maybe bigger than even the Chinese market, if only there were good regulation and governance. But with little hope for effective and speedy dispute resolution, e-commerce is still viewed with great suspicion.

When it comes to IT, the problems are huge. Look closely. Many of these problems relate to efficiency, integrity, and intelligence.

True, governments have been falling over each other to show people that they have become both IT-savvy and are IT friendly. Websites are being spruced up. The favourite buzzword is having an app. Each government department takes pride in introducing an app. But, as always, it is a case of GIGO – garbage in, garbage out.

So, you have the CEO of NITI Aayog appearing on prime-time on television, explaining how the Aarogya Setu has become the most popular download almost immediately after it was introduced. When it was found that it was riddled with leakages, and security flaws, it became ‘nobody’s child’. The country’s standing in the IT world has sunk a bit lower.

Ditto with the CoWIN App for Covid-19 vaccine registration. The app crashed during the first couple of days of the vaccination drive. Why should any website crash, or any app malfunction?

Website crashes have become commonplace. College examinations and admissions have been stalled because of server crashes. The story is the same with websites of the ministry of corporate affairs (MCA) the GST or Income Tax. That is not a flattering picture of a country that claims it could be the IT hub for the world.

The website of the richest municipality in India, the MCGM (Municipal Corporation for greater Mumbai), does not work well for e-payments. The problem, we are told, is being looked into.

Policymakers are killing the huge potential for e-commerce and e-solutions through sloth or collusive deals.

Police capabilities

The police website in Mumbai looks good till you start using it. The OTP for registering online complaints does not arrive.

The police department’s way of showing that the law and order situation has improved is to discourage any filing of complaints. Go to most police stations, especially in the suburbs. You are asked to wait for a couple of hours till a complaint is written out, that too reluctantly. They just ignore emailed complaints, which incidentally is the best way for the disabled and senior citizens to register complaints.

Scams galore

Remember the banking software glitch which allowed letters of understanding (LoUs) to be accepted without getting reflected in the central registry? Nirav Modi used this loophole to draw out money on fake LoUs from several banks. Harshad Mehta had done the same thing with fake Bankers’ Receipts (BRs). The scene of the crime changed. But the modus operandi did not.

Welcome to a Brave New India, where IT excellence is now becoming more of a rarity.

Bank KYC

Then there are other areas where there is an utter lack of understanding about how information is to be used. Take the bank KYC (Know Your Customer) norms for corporate account holders.

The bank wants physical documents that are already there with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA). All that is required is a link to the MCA website. A total abdication of common sense and good practices!

At the heart of the KYC is the Aadhaar card. The government wants KYC to prevent frauds when the main cause for frauds could be the Aadhaar card itself. By insisting that the Aadhaar card be used for issuing PAN cards, the government has opened a big money-laundering opportunity in India.

Regulatory issues

To date, neither the government, nor the RBI has clarified whether Google Pay is a licensed player or not. It is one of the most popular payment apps in Indian markets but is not listed among those cleared by the RBI for e-payment, ecommerce and other such activities as of January 5, 2021.

Moreover, do visit the MoSPI (Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation) website. Much of the data and reports listed there are for 2013-14, and 1950, GSDP and the data stops at 201516. A sad reflection on MoSPI’s functioning and the government’s transparency.

Not granting people free access to economic or social information is the starting point of corrosion and corruption.