Can you imagine how many times you may need to produce your personal profile during your life? How many times you get frustrated when your credentials are not correct? Just imagine, your personal and family informations are important from the day you born - Birth certificate, School admission application, Citizenship certificate, College admission form. Similar information required for starting your business, getting driving license for riding your first motorbike, acquiring and transferring properties, registering your marriage, migrating from district to district, casting vote for your favorite leader, getting passport for traveling abroad, applying for the job and so many events and in so many situations you will have to disclose your personal identification. So your personal information is scattered everywhere. Besides that the agencies which deal with you on such situations, each one of those should process, store, retain your information separately and definitely waste of resources, time, money. On top of that, you can not expect consistency on the information of the same person in each agency. When we are planning for the e-governance implementation in Nepal, its a high time to think about an appropriate solution for this. Many countries in our region and many countries in the world have come up with the card based identity solution. Why not we go for the similar option?
Modern ID cards bear little resemblance to the traditional "photograph on piece of cardboard" and are often hi-tech smart cards capable of being swiped and read by computer. ID card is a identity document in the form of a small standard-sized card (most of the banks in urban areas issue debit and credit cards with similar card technology). Unlike other forms of documentation, which only have a single purpose such as authorizing bank transfers or proving membership of a library, an ID card should assert the bearer's identity. The ID card, which may be issued by the government should assert a unique single civil identity for a person, thus defining that person's identity purely in relation to the country. New technologies allow ID cards to contain biometric information, such as photographs, face, hand or iris measurements, or fingerprints, and other supporting database - including full name, parents' names, address, profession, nationality, medical information like blood type, Rhesus factor(Rh factor) and many other information. In addition to that it may include the transactional information like driving license information, property ownership information, passport information etc.
It is obvious that the primary data requirement for the effective e-Governance is the Citizen database and identifying citizen may be the National ID (NID) Card. It should be a multipurpose secured and authentic ID card. Nepal government should be able to provide such card to the citizens at a cost effective basis, may be for free. Hence there is a need to select the right technology for the preparation of the card and online issue of the card also needs to be determined. This challenge must be taken up by the consortium of public and private industries, academic institutions with the Government. I would suggest introducing Single multipurpose National ID card (NID) containing all personal and family information, photo, finger print of the person and other transactional information for different purposes.
NID would be a useful administrative tool that will increase government efficiency and cut down on crime. If the government doesn't issue ID cards, private companies will require equivalent documents, such as a driver license, which are not properly suited for identity purposes. crimes such as identity theft would be drastically reduced, and are indeed unknown in countries where ID cards are required to open a bank accounts. To make the NID work, it should be a citizen-driven movement. It is a political issue. Cards for everything from passport and visa, voter ID, drivers license, vehicle registration, weapon permit, health care and welfare and secured services should come under its umbrella of NID. From 2010 you need Electronic Machine Readable Passport to travel abroad according to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) requirements. Some of the countries already use biometric passports.
Electronic cards are used increasingly by various governments, million passports are in electronic format. Smart Cards based IDs seem to be part of life in those countries. E-passports mean automated entry and exit at airports, all the while enhancing two mutually exclusive elements-security and management of passenger flows. Not only Singapore, Japan, Korea, USA, UK, but there are several developing countries that are expanding their use of smart cards as well. Take the example of multipurpose card (myKad) in Malaysia, vehicle registration and driver licenses' in El Salvador, ID cards in Oman, health care cards in Slovenia and vehicle registration in India. Government security in the US, UK, - there are whole range of areas where smart card usage is applicable and beneficial.
During my interactions with different agencies while preparing investment plan for the e-governance, I found a greater enthusiasm for putting driving licenses, vehicle registration, Citizenship certificate, passports etc., on the card. If national broadband network can be started and made available in cities and to the last village, East to west, Himalayan region to plain Terai, a number of e-services can be delivered, which would provide a government-citizen interface of tremendous value. The National ID card is the foundation of trust for e-governance. A large number of services can be listed, which could make all the difference in creating a efficient government-citizen integration.
The scale and range of the National ID card business is so vast that multi-stakeholder partnership (may be the Public Private Partnership) is the only perceived way it could be successfully implemented for all the citizens of Nepal. For all these services however, the cards need to be secure against fraud and tampering. It should be a strong identification, with no threat to customer privacy, providing a better service to the clients and an easy to deploy system. Visit www.rajeshshakya.com for other details.
Showing posts with label Process Reengineering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Process Reengineering. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Transparency in e-Governance
It is quite frustrating dealing with government organizations especially when one does not know anybody personally there. And of course, everybody seems to know that there are "ways and means" to get things done anyway. Its very surprising that almost all the work processes in government agencies are well specified with almost no room for subjective arguments. Every decision are taken referring to some well specified policy. Even if the rules or policies do not address a particular situation at hand, an elaborate system ("TIPPANI UTHAUNE") has been developed so that a broad consensus is attained by collecting bunch of signatures before a decision is taken. The whole system seems to be well designed and operated to eradicate corruption.
If you go to government departments, you will find that the employees are very much cautious with every single activity they do. They are cautious using specific words when they write, and they always make commitments referring to the "policy and regulations books" and "business as usual". More often than not, they seem to choose non-action or personally safe actions rather than committing to or doing anything that can hold them accountable. There are so many problems in the present bureaucratic system which can all be easily evaluated and traced back to one single root, 'lack of standard, reliable, intelligent and automated support system to facilitating the existing governance system". In the existing system, citizens don’t see the complete picture of the any process (they don't know where to look at for such 'complete picture' of the service workflow), because of this, citizens spend a lot of time visiting one department to another and one table to another; there is not effective and efficient way to cross-reference the work progress, performance Standards are not followed and there is no incentives for best performers in bureaucracy and no real-time performance, process and accounting audits.
Only Technology can be the answer for this!
Nepal is moving ahead for transformation, at least I really look forward to seeing the transparent society. It is quite essential that government services which have direct face to face contact or interactions with citizens especially where the government agencies have to serve or support the citizens, such services have to be using the tools of Information and Communications Technology (ICT). For this to happen, software have to be designed and written to standardize and encode the process rules, procedures and similarly other related government services and access to those public services should be through IT, especially through Internet based online services. Then the government services can provide equal and unbiased access to all citizens based on pre-coded common process rules and even with rules to handle the exceptions in a transparent manner. As myself being myself in IT industry for the last 15 years, I am confident that Nepal has got its own sufficient IT talents in Information and communication Technology (ICT) to develop any complex software applications required for e-governance. Visit www.rajeshshakya.com for other details.
Each components of e-Governance including 'transparency' have to be initiated as a mission and such initiations should be complemented by the appropriate legal infrastructure. We should not forget that simply implementing the software applications don't bring in the transparent system, it requires whole lot of training and exercises for the government employees to change the mindset from "knowledge hiding" attitude to "knowledge sharing" attitude. On another side of the coin, citizens should be aware enough to demand its right to Information.
If you go to government departments, you will find that the employees are very much cautious with every single activity they do. They are cautious using specific words when they write, and they always make commitments referring to the "policy and regulations books" and "business as usual". More often than not, they seem to choose non-action or personally safe actions rather than committing to or doing anything that can hold them accountable. There are so many problems in the present bureaucratic system which can all be easily evaluated and traced back to one single root, 'lack of standard, reliable, intelligent and automated support system to facilitating the existing governance system". In the existing system, citizens don’t see the complete picture of the any process (they don't know where to look at for such 'complete picture' of the service workflow), because of this, citizens spend a lot of time visiting one department to another and one table to another; there is not effective and efficient way to cross-reference the work progress, performance Standards are not followed and there is no incentives for best performers in bureaucracy and no real-time performance, process and accounting audits.
Only Technology can be the answer for this!
Nepal is moving ahead for transformation, at least I really look forward to seeing the transparent society. It is quite essential that government services which have direct face to face contact or interactions with citizens especially where the government agencies have to serve or support the citizens, such services have to be using the tools of Information and Communications Technology (ICT). For this to happen, software have to be designed and written to standardize and encode the process rules, procedures and similarly other related government services and access to those public services should be through IT, especially through Internet based online services. Then the government services can provide equal and unbiased access to all citizens based on pre-coded common process rules and even with rules to handle the exceptions in a transparent manner. As myself being myself in IT industry for the last 15 years, I am confident that Nepal has got its own sufficient IT talents in Information and communication Technology (ICT) to develop any complex software applications required for e-governance. Visit www.rajeshshakya.com for other details.
Each components of e-Governance including 'transparency' have to be initiated as a mission and such initiations should be complemented by the appropriate legal infrastructure. We should not forget that simply implementing the software applications don't bring in the transparent system, it requires whole lot of training and exercises for the government employees to change the mindset from "knowledge hiding" attitude to "knowledge sharing" attitude. On another side of the coin, citizens should be aware enough to demand its right to Information.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Government Administrative Process Reengineering
How e-Government should be started is a question of debate. There are different best practices from different countries. There is absolutely not a single answer. The draft e-Government Master Plan (eGMP) has been prepared by the government of Nepal with the technical assistance from the Korean Government. It has identified spectrum of prospective government applications ranging from government internal process automation to online citizen services and Government procurement portals. Project for investment plan preparation is under going under the technical assistance from Asian Development Bank (ADB).
Planning should be the holistic manner but the implementation of each project should be taken case to case basis. Important thing is the Common e-Government Application Framework and standard common e-government architecture that all applications should base upon facilitating interoperability.
Government should decide what is the strategy for prioritizing the applications for implementation. And needs an extensive exercise to find out how much reengineering we want in the government process based on the application identified. Reengineering can not be done for the whole organization itself. It should be targeted to the processes only for specific administrative or public service functions (applications).
Starting small is a success factor for e-Governance in its all branches: Administration, Civil Services, Parliament and Judiciary functions. The manner of reengineering implementation and sequencing of the reengineering are key issues. Reengineering should be aimed at adapting administration to the further increasing flow of information: simplifying the work process, accelerating the process of decision making by optimizing resources, and making the mechanism for decision making self-regulating. e-Government is justified if it enhances the capacity of public administration to increase the supply of public value - the outcome of a high quality of life. It is essential that the government process reengineering should be done before any computerization. It should not be a mere automation, but the transformation through process reengineering.
While setting the priority for the e-Government applications implementation, government should be clear in its strategy of priority, whether it should give priority to "Economic Benefits" or priority to "Social Benefits" or priority to "Benefits of Government" or the proportionately from all. Going through any government Process reengineering effort is difficult given the various contending forces, which push and pull all the public sector. It is indeed important for the countries like us undergoing reforms to learn from the successes and failures of others and study their best practices. The literature on reforms undertaken in other countries provides lessons to those who are still in the process of formulating a reform agenda. But one should always keep in mind the importance of contextual perspective, the diversity of country problems, evaluation of the cultural values, strength of the country managing resources for reform, commitment of the top level bureaucratic, political and social leaders and taking up the reform as national priority agenda and the responsibility of the countries themselves, which are best placed to do so, to decide where to place their emphasis.
The major objective of this governance should be to support and simplify governance for all parties - government, citizens, and businesses.
Visit www.rajeshshakya.com for other details.
Planning should be the holistic manner but the implementation of each project should be taken case to case basis. Important thing is the Common e-Government Application Framework and standard common e-government architecture that all applications should base upon facilitating interoperability.
Government should decide what is the strategy for prioritizing the applications for implementation. And needs an extensive exercise to find out how much reengineering we want in the government process based on the application identified. Reengineering can not be done for the whole organization itself. It should be targeted to the processes only for specific administrative or public service functions (applications).
Starting small is a success factor for e-Governance in its all branches: Administration, Civil Services, Parliament and Judiciary functions. The manner of reengineering implementation and sequencing of the reengineering are key issues. Reengineering should be aimed at adapting administration to the further increasing flow of information: simplifying the work process, accelerating the process of decision making by optimizing resources, and making the mechanism for decision making self-regulating. e-Government is justified if it enhances the capacity of public administration to increase the supply of public value - the outcome of a high quality of life. It is essential that the government process reengineering should be done before any computerization. It should not be a mere automation, but the transformation through process reengineering.
While setting the priority for the e-Government applications implementation, government should be clear in its strategy of priority, whether it should give priority to "Economic Benefits" or priority to "Social Benefits" or priority to "Benefits of Government" or the proportionately from all. Going through any government Process reengineering effort is difficult given the various contending forces, which push and pull all the public sector. It is indeed important for the countries like us undergoing reforms to learn from the successes and failures of others and study their best practices. The literature on reforms undertaken in other countries provides lessons to those who are still in the process of formulating a reform agenda. But one should always keep in mind the importance of contextual perspective, the diversity of country problems, evaluation of the cultural values, strength of the country managing resources for reform, commitment of the top level bureaucratic, political and social leaders and taking up the reform as national priority agenda and the responsibility of the countries themselves, which are best placed to do so, to decide where to place their emphasis.
The major objective of this governance should be to support and simplify governance for all parties - government, citizens, and businesses.
Visit www.rajeshshakya.com for other details.
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