4. Best Practices and Lessons from the Past-A great deal of work has already been done in
various central ministries and in state governments. The key is to learn from these and design
best practices that are affordable and applicable nationwide to ensure ease of use and
interoperability. We note that the government?s own offices, laboratories, directorates etc.,
have immense amount of useful and relevant data (e.g. seven centres of the National Bureau of
Soil Science and Land Use Planning NBSSLUP), which needs to be digitized and made
publicly accessible for use and analysis. This requires making the data collected by one
agency, available across all agencies as well as the public, subject to their sensitivity to
national security.
5. National Infrastructure-It is important to provide nationwide secure broadband
infrastructure and associated hardware, software and hosting facilities with easy access at all
levels. This infrastructure should be based on user-pays principle and Public-Private
partnership in investments and mutual accountability and efficiency. This infrastructure
creation should be led by the central government to enforce a high level of security,
uniformity and standards at every interface, regardless of state language, culture, legacy and
financial health.
6. Web-based Services-To enforce standards and to keep the governance uniformly responsive
and transparent, it is recommended that state governments use templates created by the central
government to offer localised data and services in Indian languages. In this model, the private
sector can invest in creation of access-infrastructure and building relevant business models for
user-fee collection and its sharing across all stakeholders, to ensure sustainability and
adaptation for future needs. This also implies that all public institutions will make sure that all
public data is available on the web.
7. Open Source Software-Because of the enormous size and scope of the e-governance effort
in India and because of the availability of globally recognised software talent of Indians, we
must actively encourage wherever possible open source software implementations and open
standards. This will allow us to have cost-effective solutions and help develop open software
products and standards. It will also help improve scaling up as well as minimize delays
caused by repeat tendering.
8. Specialist CITO (chief information technology officer)-Each state and major central
government departments must create an empowered chief information technology officer, with
relevant expertise and skills in the domain subject and IT usage. These posts must be filled on
open recruitment and draw the best and the brightest from India?s technologically qualified
talent. These officers should be paid market salary and have a three year contract with the
government, renewal of which will be dependent on performance.
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