R Chandrashekhars appointment as the IT secretary last month came as a pleasant news as it was long due. This was mainly because somebody with established credentials of carrying the development plank on his shoulders was going to lead the department. In his previous capacity as the additional secretary and special secretary, IT, Chandrashekhar has been often referred to as the architect of Indias National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). e-Governance is 20% e and 80% governance, he was quoted as saying. Who knows this better than the man driving the Indian e-governance dream. Chandrashekhar is also credited for establishing Indias first Department of Information Technology in Andhra Pradesh, and heralding some of the most innovative and path-breaking efforts, such as the public-private partnership concept in e-governance projects.

Backed with a double Masters in Chemistry from IIT Mumbai, and Computer Science from Pennsylvania State University, Chandrashekhar believes that technology usage is about brining value to political objectives of solving peoples problems. According to him the real test of e-governance would be the value of service delivered, particularly in rural pockets. With e-gov as his forte, one is rest assured that things will stay on track, but what one needs see is how the overall IT industry receives him. Though the appointment has come at a time when the IT industry has been suffering on count of a global downturn, Chandrashekhar sounds optimistic as he sorts out his agenda. In an exclusive chat with Dataquest he talks about the industry, e-governance, and much more. Excerpts

What is your IT vision for the next couple of years?
IT has been the torchbearer for India in the global scenario and has performed very successfully over the past several years. But due to the global downturn, the IT and exports sectors have been impacted, in terms of the growth rate. We have seen significant decline in growth because of the market condition. Still, the essentials of the industry are very sound. And we are very hopeful and confident that the growth will climb back in the near future. We are looking at the domestic usage of IT in terms of domestic consumption. The government itself has a number of plans for the usage of IT in the form of e-governance and various developmental activities, which are not necessarily projects under the NeGP, but projects under national programs such as Bharat Nirman. This has also been referred by the President of India in her address to the Parliament. All these programs will bring in significant step-up in the usage of IT by the government. In short, we see a substantial acceleration in domestic growth of the IT sector. We are also hopeful that this will temporarily compensate the downturn on the exports front in the IT industry. Earlier, exports were growing very fast and domestic growth was a little low. Now the former has slowed down, while the latter has gained momentum, so it will compensate and balance the situation.

Are you hopeful that there would be a good IT budget from the Government of India in the coming financial year?
The budget for the current year is yet to be presented in the Parliament. The priority that is being given to the IT sector in the past is expected to be continued in this year also.

What is happening on the IT hardware front in India?
We are looking at increasing the domestic production on the hardware side. We have already announced the Special Investment Package Scheme (SIPS) for the semi-conductors sector. In fact under that scheme, we have issued twelve in-principal approvals for twelve projects in this month alone. The total outlay of this scheme is about Rs 77,000 crore. These are all private sector projects. So, we do expect to see some growth in the hardware sector in the near future. We are looking at hardware across the spectrum because the domestic market is a robust market and the growth projections are extremely good. There are some projections that from the current level of $20 mn of annual domestic manufacturing and $20 bn annual imports will go up to $320 bn by 2015. So, we are working together with the industry on how to leverage this growth for enhancing domestic manufacturing.

Now that the core infrastructure for e-governance is almost ready in most of the states in India, what is the next level of planning and implementation?
We have some short term and medium term strategies to make services available under the NeGP. Through short term strategies, we would like to ensure that within one year, a minimum number of services would be available through the common service centers (CSCs). The initial services would not be end-to-end, but will be significant. These are services like provision of birth and death certificates, land records, driving license, RTI complaints, complaints against the police, etc. These sets of services are regulatory in nature.

Under the medium term strategies, services would be end-to-end electronic services. These will be developmental services such as in the health, education and agricultural sector. For the major flagship programs like the Bharat Nirman, we want to use the CSCs as the vehicle to increase the reach and quality of the services. This will also ensure that one will get better medical facilities as well as educational services in a village. The idea is to use ICT and the powerful network of 1,00,000 CSCs across the country to the maximum. We are also working very closely with the Department of Communications (DoT) for the connectivity of these CSCs. We see the usage of both optical fiber and wireless.

What other activities are planned by DIT in the upcoming year?
An important area that we are working on is the IT Act, which was amended in December 2008. The enforcement of that Act and the publication of all the rules under that Act is a big priority for us now. The rules are already drafted and put in the public domain and consultation process has started and we expect to complete it in the later part of the year. Another major area is the national knowledge network, which is presently undergoing approval process.

Nilakshi Barooah
nilakshib@cybermedia.co.in