IT task force to reform transport & shipping ministry bodies

Former Infosys chief financial officer Mohandas Pai is part of the task force

Former Infosys chief financial officer (CFO) Mohandas Pai has the challenge to reform administration of the ministries of road transport and highways, and shipping, to make these more transparent, efficient and accountable.

The overall plan intends to promote people-centred development approaches and facilitate innovation for providing better access to public services.

The agenda of the 10-member information technology (IT) task force, which includes former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai, set up by Union Transport and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari, has been laid out.

"We had begun with INAM-PRO which was our flagship initiative to increase transparency and competition in the road transport & highways ministry. This IT task force is also going to work on the same lines of increasing transparency and reach in the public domain," said Sanjay Jaju, director, National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.

INAM-PRO is a recent initiative of the ministry to bring proximate cement sellers and procurers under one umbrella through a government website to mitigate overall costs incurred.

The committee's mandate will include engaging internally with ministry officials and externally with stakeholders.

The task force will also guide work on existing projects and work on integrating existing projects and establishing project deliverables.

"While the road transport & highways and shipping ministries will have different focus areas, they will have common data points and will be interoperable," said Jaju.

One key project that will be taken up in the primary stages will be setting up a system for providing online no-objection certificates (NOC) for properties across national highways, an RO bill payment system and INAM-PRO.

The task force, which will soon finalise the future road map, will be supported by a dedicated secretariat with technical, legal and project management skills.

The resources required for setting up such a secretariat could be hired from outside on a fixed duration hire basis. The requisite budget would be earmarked by the two ministries for setting up the secretariat.

Other members of the task force include former IT secretary for Andhra Pradesh, Sanjay Jaju; Abhijit Purushottam Desai, partner at Ekam Consulting; Prashant Pole, director at Disha Consultants; and Girish Srivastava, a policy and strategy consultant.