Event

Technology Sabha 2008

Public Private Partnership and project management were amongst the key issues discussed at the Technology Sabha 2008–an e-governance forum, Reports Kushal Shah

Vinayak Deshpande, Executive President–Operations, Tata Teleservices Limited

Continuing the trend of serving the Indian e-Governance movement, the third iteration of Technology Sabha 2008 took place at Aamby Valley City. This year, we saw less of how e-Governance can help and more of discussions related to how it can be made more effective. With discussions on public private partnership (PPP), project management, implementations and other issues, the maturity in the Indian e-Governance scenario was clearly visible at this three day event. A panel discussion on SWAN and presentations on some of the successful implementations including that of MCA 21 demonstrated the confidence of the government IT honchos. All this and more was coupled with the display of vendor offerings for e-Governance projects and perspectives about e-Governance in India.

Connecting India

The keynote speaker, Vinayak Deshpande, Executive President – Operations, Tata Teleservices Limited spoke about how telecommunication along with IT plays an important role in e-Governance and the future of the same. He started off by stating the four pillars of the role of telecom in the development of the economy, viz. financial services, health & family welfare, information & education and active e-Governance. According to him, the diffusion of new ideas and knowledge, reduction of regional infrastructure and development gap, telecommunications as an input to the economic production process, global telecommunication connections, and rural and urban development are some of the roles of telecom in the development of an economy.

Speaking about e-Governance in particular, Deshpande said, “We are entering an exciting time and this is the beginning of the tipping point. We are at the bottom of e-Governance graph and that gives us a greater opportunity to grow than countries such as UK and Australia that have reached the saturation level in terms of e-Governance.” Looking at the work which has been done by the central government, he felt that there has been huge progress. Teledensity has gone up and even VPN and Internet usage is growing and we have seen impressive progress over the last ten years in these areas. Post 2002, the mobile and wireless industry has seen exponential growth, which was rather slow before that. The industry growth and effective charge per minute for users have been inversely proportional over these years and this has played a big role in the expansion.

Talking about the wireless roadmap, he believed that technologies such as FLASH-OFDM and UMB (Ultra Mobile Broadband) will help increase radio frequency bandwidth. Apart from that, high bandwidth is also expected from WiMax which will range from 8 to 10 Mbps for fixed locations. “All these technologies are going to give you higher bandwidth which will help reach upcountry locations and help in education amongst other areas,” felt Deshpande. He added that in the future we can expect 8-10 Mbps wireless connections. He ended his keynote speech with a note saying that there exists both, opportunity and responsibility to make a smart state and stronger economy.

Vinayak Deshpande, Executive President–Operations,Tata Teleservices Limited hands over the award to YS Malik, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India

Vinayak Deshpande, Executive President–Operations,Tata Teleservices Limited hands over the award to Prabhjeet Singh Kukreja, Project Manager-e-Governance, Department of IT, Government of Punjab

Vinayak Deshpande, Executive President–Operations,Tata Teleservices Limited hands over the award to Ashok Kumar, Project Manager -IT, Department of Education, Government of Delhi

Best of the lot

This time around, Technology Sabha decided to felicitate three of the best e-Governance projects in the country. The first project to receive the award was MCA 21. To collect the award, YS Malik, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Corporate Affairs was present. Receiving the award, he said, “It is an honor to be recognized by Indian Express. Normally we take criticism from them and now it is a big thing to be recognized. We need to live up to this award by doing enhancements.” After MCA 21, Prabhjeet Singh Kukreja, Project Manager-e-Governance, Department of IT, Government of Punjab came to receive the award for the Suwidha Project. The final award was given to the Delhi education board for which, Ashok Kumar, Project Manager - IT, Department of Education, Government of Delhi collected the award.