Information Technology for ‘Citizen-Government’ Interface: A Study of FRIENDS Project in Kerala ______________________________________________________________________ Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 IT, Government and Citizens Of the many technologies of our time, the progress made in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is believed to be a revolution with profound influence on economic development. The rapid advancements in ICT are making it economically feasible to collect, store, process and transmit information at breathtaking speed, reduce cost, particularly, the transaction cost, raise productivity and increase economic welfare. While the nature of some of these advantages are debated, there is a popular feeling that this new technology is an example of the third industrial revolution taking place in the world economy. The developed countries are already in the process of taking advantage of the revolution. The developing countries, as well, are showing keen interest in evolving policies and allocating the highest priority for investment of their scarce resources for the development and diffusion of ICT. These countries believe that ICT can provide them a short cut to prosperity by allowing them to bypass some phases of development in the conventional stages of structural transformation from agrarian to industrial and ultimately to knowledge-based service sector. India is one among the bandwagon of those developing countries. India has already crossed a few milestones in the development of the software export segment of the ICT industry. However, there is a growing fear that the growth of ICT will follow existing lines of social and economic inequality and possibly even intensify prevalent patterns of social exclusion. While acknowledging that the rapid development of ICT represents a revolution in the making, the World Employment Report 2001 points out that disparities in the diffusion and use of these new technologies risk widening the already serious ‘digital divide’, between technological haves and have-nots. This would call for an active intervention by the state for induced diffusion of the technology. In this context, it would be interesting to examine the attempt for ‘citizen-government’ interface through IT in the state of Kerala, India. The FRIENDS project, as this interface is called, in Kerala cannot be highlighted as a hi-tech technology solution but probably as an appropriate technology solution based on citizen needs. This probably has been the reason for ________________________________________________________________________________ 1 Information Technology for ‘Citizen-Government’ Interface: A Study of FRIENDS Project in Kerala ______________________________________________________________________ the popularity of the project. However, no scientific study has been done to identify the problems and prospects of the project, nor its cost benefits. The current study examines the working of FRIENDS centres in Kerala based on the satisfaction level of citizens and responses from within Government, especially the participating departments and personnel. It also undertakes a cost benefit analysis of the system. The study documents the lessons learned through the project as a specific case study of IT implementation in Government in developing countries and further analyses the areas that warrant attention. 1.2 FRIENDS Project in Kerala The State of Kerala declared a comprehensive IT Policy in 1998 with a specific focus on popularizing the use of Information Technology among the masses. The initial e-governance mandate of the Information Technology (IT) Department of the state was to identify the government departments that have a high level of public interface and to introduce Information Technology to ensure effective delivery of citizen services. Accordingly, 34 departments were identified for introducing IT in the first phase. On attempting system studies, it became clear that for any meaningful IT implementation, substantial administrative reforms would have to precede the same. For instance, it was found by the Administrative Reforms Committee of the Government that a single file would have to be handled by as many as 60 people before a decision is taken on the same. In the above context, it became obvious to the department that simple automation of existing processes would not be an effective solution. However, since administrative reforms generally takes substantial time, the benefits of utilising ICT in governance would also take considerable time to reach the citizens. It was hence decided by the Government to adopt a two-pronged strategy – a long term IT implementation strategy concurrent to administrative reforms and a medium term strategy involving high visibility People Oriented Projects. FRIENDS (Fast Reliable Instant Effective Network for Disbursement of Services) is one such People Oriented IT Project initiated by the Government of Kerala. The basic idea was taken from the e-Seva project in Andhra Pradesh. However, considerable changes were brought in to suit the local needs as well as to ensure easy replicability throughout the state. The credit for conceiving this project goes to Mr. M. Sivasankar, an officer in the civil service who was working as Mission Coordinator in the IT Mission, the executive agency of the Department ________________________________________________________________________________ 2 Information Technology for ‘Citizen-Government’ Interface: A Study of FRIENDS Project in Kerala ______________________________________________________________________ of IT, Government of Kerala. Ms. Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary to Government in the Department of Information Technology spearheaded the implementation team. The project was got implemented through the Centre for Development of Imaging Technology, an agency under the Government of Kerala. Like in all other Indian states, there are a number of departments collecting taxes and utility bill payments. Individual citizens are expected to pay the tax or the utility payment at the office of the department or the agency concerned. This means that every citizen has to personally visit at least seven offices and stand in queues waiting their turn to pay the taxes and other payments due to Government. Some efforts were earlier made to facilitate payments through the banking network. However, given the fact that many banks and government departments/agencies were not computerized, this effort only led to delayed collections and reconciliation problems. Moreover, only 2 to 5 percent of the population used this facility. It was in this background that the one stop IT enabled payment counter project, FRIENDS, was conceived. FRIENDS is a “single window scheme” where citizens have the opportunity to pay all the taxes and other dues to Government. FRIENDS seeks to extend the benefits of full fledged computerisation of individual departments to the citizens, even before the whole backend computerization is completed. The salient feature of the project is the effective integration of IT and logistics for citizen services. The project was launched in the capital city of the State - Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, in June 2000 and was replicated in thirteen district (out of a total of fourteen districts) headquarters of the state in the 2001. The date of commencement of each centre is given in Table 1.1. The participating departments were given the freedom to maintain payment counters in their office premises as well. The centres work from 9 am to 7 pm on all days including Sundays, except national holidays. The counters are equipped to handle around 1000 types of bills (in various combinations) originating out of various departments, as listed below. Utilities 1. KSEB (Power) Bill 2. KWA (Water) Bill 3. BSNL (Telephones) Bill Local Body 4. Property Tax 5. Professional tax 6. Traders License Fee ________________________________________________________________________________ 3 Information Technology for ‘Citizen-Government’ Interface: A Study of FRIENDS Project in Kerala ______________________________________________________________________ Revenue Department 7. Building Tax 8. Basic Tax 9. Revenue Recovery Civil Supplies 10. Fee for new ration card and various certificates 11. Fee for trade licenses – 11 types Motor Vehicles 12. One time vehicle tax 13. Motor Vehicle tax – 105 types 14. Fee for Licenses from Motor vehicles Dept – 20 types 15. Fee for permits from Motor Vehicles Dept - 142 types 16. Registration fee for Motor vehicles – 37 types 17. Fee for Fitness Certificate of Motor Vehicles University 18. University exam fee – 352 types 19. Fees (general) – 96 types The personnel required for operating the counters are deployed from the participating departments and no additional recruitments/inductions were made. Ten junior level officers each from the participating departments were initially identified for the purpose. All of them were given the common designation of Service Officers; irrespective of their position in their parent department and were allowed to draw their salary and other benefits from their parent departments. The selected personnel underwent weeklong orientation training at Institute of Management in Government. The training was divided in two phases. In the first phase, they were given general training on behavioral aspects - personality development and public relations- for better interaction with the customers. In the second phase, general computer awareness training was provided. It is interesting to note