Digital India faces NoFN delay,hurdles

As the government makes a fresh bid to push the Digital India programme, which has been snagged with delays in the National Optic Fibre Network (NoFN) and other hurdles, experts said various issues like working out the revenue model, work flow automation, creating an ecosystem for it and others would have to be addressed to make it successful.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the Rs 1.3 lakh crore programme that intends to create infrastructure to digitally deliver government services to citizens.

Bengaluru-based telecom professional G Krishna Kumar said while Digital India was a great initiative to bridge the digital divide between the cities and the rural hinterland, the government would need to embark on an e-literacy mission for training people and helping them understand the benefits of using e-governance platform.

"Even in cities, we need a strong work flow automation set-up to be established. For example, if I request for some document from the government office, I should know how long it will take for the document to be processed and also what is the current status. This removes anxiety among the citizens, an assured service level would mean better accountability and reduced corruption," he said.

Citing the example of property registration in Bengaluru, he said despite it being digitised, most processes were still done manually and required multiple visits to the local office.

"The assured services and timelines are rarely met. Even if we have the technology and platform, enforcing the system can be a challenge. A strong willingness from the government is much needed," he said.

According to him, Digital India and smart cities initiatives can be aligned and existing e-governance systems should be modified to be brought under it.

Krishna said public private partnership (PPP) model of executing the projects was the right approach. Under this model, private players will look for profits and so it would be important for the government to provide a clear roadmap and blueprint for the same.

He said one successful case of PPP project was the Passport Seva Kendra, where the government partnered with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

"Maybe, the government should replicate the best practices (of the Passport Seva Kendra) so that it is a win-win for the stakeholders," he said.

Deloitte senior director Arindam Guha said the Passport Seva Kendra was commercially viable because of the service charges collected by the government for it.

He, therefore, said it was crucial for the government work out a revenue model that could entice private partners to bring in investments.

"As the government intends to digitally link up remote areas. For this, it will require huge investment and so has to look at how it will service it (the investment)," said Guha.

Currently, there were many e-governance programmes of the centre, state and local authorities that are languishing. He suggested they could to merged into Digital India and taken to its completion.

Guha also said the government would have to draw up a comprehensive roadmap to complete the NoFN project, which is crucial for delivering the content and services.

Bipin Kumar, a telecom consultant, said at the current pace of implementation of NoFN, it would not be able to meet its deadline.

"Using gap analysis, it has been arrived that we will need to lay an additional 5 lakh km (kilometre) of fibre. I don't know how much of that has been actually laid, but again estimates say that to meet the deadline of March 2017, it is a pace of laying roughly about 30,000 km of fibre a month. Apparently, we are laying 500 km a month. One sixtieth of what we are supposed to do. I don't think we will ever meet the deadline if this is the pace," he said.

Kumar also feels the programme will cover just 35% of the rural areas by digitally connecting only 2.5 lakh gram panchayats (GPs) of the 6.4 lakh GPs.

"It is a far cry from China's 98% broadband coverage," he said.

He also stressed that a proper ecosystem would have to be created to avoid glitches in its implementation.

"I wonder if the government has bitten off more than it can chew. It is not enough to launch programmes, it is important to build the ecosystem and sustainable models around it," he said.