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Government's e-office plans tied in red tape, files go up in flames-Vikas Dhoot & Harsimran Julka
-The Economic Times

Heaps of dusty files continue to grow in government buildings and sensitive papers are mysteriously lost, leaked or dramatically reduced to ashes in fires while the six-year-old plan to modernise and digitise governance remains tied up in what it should eliminate - red tape.

The latest casualty was the Union home ministry, where a fire was reported on Sunday, days after a blaze engulfed Mumbai's Mantralaya, killing people and destroying reams of vital data. Another fire had burnt documents in the finance ministry earlier in June.

Documents and records may continue to vanish for another five years as officials say the country's e-governance plan is crawling, facing fierce resistance from the bureaucracy, which will have to work with more transparency and accountability.

Some departments have already secured data digitally. These include income tax, Customs and excise, corporate affairs ministry and passport services, but most, including state treasuries, land records, courts and employment exchanges, remain vulnerable.

The Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG), anointed by the Cabinet to champion the digital governance cause, still creates paper files for its own work. The government's own target for a full-fledged transition to e-Offices, where every file's movement is digitally tracked and archived in remote servers, is a leisurely 2017.

"Digitisation of government documents should have been done years ago. The least that some government departments can do is remove the file noting system on paper and instead take notings and approvals on email. It will remove a lot of paper, and make things faster," said Anoop Kaul, national head for financial inclusion at Basix.
 
Basix has been empanelled by the government for UIDAI enrolment. "In departments where employees are not much computer-literate, the basic thing that can be done is to number all the files and keep them in a fireproof and waterproof custody," said Anoop Kaul of Basix.

Officials say things are moving. The government has pumped in more than Rs 10,000 crore to make public services online and for development of infrastructure. "The figures are expected to reach Rs 40,000 crore by 2014. This will involve increasing the count of service offerings from 600 to 1,100," the DARPG said in a paper for a conference on e-governance.

The government also plans to increase the number of Common Service Centres to 2.5 lakh, from 98,000, to give people in every village panchayat facilities to get ration cards, register births and deaths, register grievances and seek electoral registration facilities under one roof.

That is a big business opportunity for companies such as SREI Infrastructure Finance, Karvy Computershare, Micro Technologies India, Gujarat Infotech, Datasoft Computer Services, Spanco, CSS Technergy and others involved in digitising records.

But it is an uphill task. Even the government admits there is strong resistance. "The employees in government ministries/departments, particularly at the state level, lack awareness about the significance of e-Service delivery to general public as well as to themselves. As such, the employees are resistant to any changes in the way of working or in embracing technology," the paper said.

Officials say high level of illiteracy, low Internet penetration, poor power supply in rural areas and lack of awareness are significant obstacles, but experts say there are bigger bugbears in the system. Sam Pitroda, the prime minister's adviser on public information infrastructure and innovation, recently told ET that there was a lot of resistance to the e-Office idea in the system, with officers seeking four years 'to experiment' with it. "We can't have 21st Century governance with 20th Century tools. Why can't we capitalise on our leadership position in IT and bring about changes in governance?" Pitroda said, stressing that such a system would detect any manipulation in a file while keeping it secure in back-up data servers.

While several states as well as the Centre have made the right noises about e-Office systems, bureaucrats have made the transition only when top bosses championed the new system. The UPA government has conceded this point in an e-Office framework released recently by the DARPG. "The transformation of Gujarat Secretariat has only been possible due to dedicated and unflinching support of the government of Gujarat and the commitment from the highest offices to ensure the success of the project," says the document drafted to guide departments through the digital transition.

"A clear initiative from the government's top leaders is presently missing at the Centre. Unless the PMO or Cabinet Secretary lead the change, no one would act," said an e-governance expert. For instance, in Gujarat, which has now moved completely to a digital governance platform, thousands of files were digitised overnight by reluctant departments after the finance secretary refused to incorporate their budgetary demands if made via paper files.

Security of records is important. In March 2012, the Prime Minister's Office revealed to a citizen that no official records can be found about the imposition of the Emergency, so none could be shared under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. A month later, a fire engulfed New Delhi's Vikas Bhavan that reduced several Delhi Development Authority files to ashes. A similar fire, five years ago, in the capital's Mayur Bhavan destroyed critical files of the income-tax and provident fund departments.