A lot has been sold to us about “e-this” and “e-that”. However, over a period of time, I am actually turning cynical about the whole “e charade”.
A relook at the priorties would be humbling enough. For example, as the political system goes bust and the infrastructure crumbling, I doubt whether any Government would actually devote any attention to improving the work flow and rely instead on the file work instead.
E governance in it’s avatar means downloading forms from Internet. Try and get any Government official to respond and they equate email with the old fashioned file work. Which effectively means that it’s next to impossible to make them respond. I really wonder as to how the Government of India would respond to the challanges of 21st Century.
Similarly, I have been reading about the “e commerce”; this dream remains unfulfilled. The neighbourhood kirana shop (grocery store) doesn’t have computers and they don’t have broadband either. Nor do they have any website where they can track orders. Such was the fantasy spun by the media without taking in the ground realities.
Similarly banks have invested heavy and serious money to facilitate online transactions. However, in the absence of any tie ups, it becomes extremely difficult to transfer cash to other banks electronically. This, of course, makes the whole thing meaningless. Step in any bank and you would see glorified data entry workers inanely typing away. This raises secuirty issues too after the phising attacks and the fact that most of the people predominantly use Internet Explorer. The crappiest piece of software ever written.
E mails to any government official don’t elicit any reply or even acknowledgement. For long, I was trying to elicit a valid response from National Library of Medicine to provide eletronic access to resources. However brain dead they are, the emails repeatedly bounced back! In any case, BSNL’s officials fail to respond to any queries. Despite the fact that most of the officials have their emails listed online.
Similary, websites are supposed to articulate the “vision” and the purpose of the government. The reality is far from ideals. Open up any website of GoI and you would mostly find miniscule information. For example, Ministry of Health fails to articulate the crumbling infrastructure or the fact that National Health programmes are in doldrums. I wouldn’t expect a jazzed up flash thingy in-your-face-kinds but some degree of information does need to be conveyed.
In the hoopla about the broadband, “E” initiatives need to be taken in proper perspective before we jump to proclaim them. In my own view, I would rate Singapore’s e initiatives as the best I have come so far. It takes some hard work to make things work.
Tags: Broadband, BSNL, EDGE, India, Internet, Internet Explorer, Media, Telecommunications India