Tech-enabled government

Modi 2.0 should strike a balance between quality access to technology and data security to ensure effective governance

Interacting with bureaucrats for the first time in his second stint, Prime Minister Narendra Modi listed “more technology in government” as a priority area. Along with vision for a five-year plan and other goals such as improving the ease of living for citizens, any mention of technology could get lost in the larger scheme of things. But greater adoption of technology in the government can be a game changer for any country, as numerous research papers and surveys have shown. 

Use technology to improve outcomes and efficiency in each department, the PM told the senior-most officials in the government. India’s improved ranking in e-governance last year may have prompted him to keep tech in the top list. In 2018, the country moved 22 places up to be in the first 100 of the United Nation’s E-government Development Index 2018. From 118th in 2014, it reached 96th in 2018. If the government is serious about making technology an integral part of governance and see real outcomes, it must look at Denmark, Australia, South Korea, the UK, Sweden, Finland, Singapore, New Zealand, France and Japan — the top 10 in the global index. While there’s a direct corelation between income levels and e-governance performance, the development of online services contributed significantly to the overall score in the index in 2018. 

Against that backdrop, quality access to internet data is the basic requirement for India’s e-governance score to improve. And the access has to be device and technology agnostic; wireless and wireline. For that, telecom companies and the government need to be on the same page, or at least near about — whether it’s on the date of the next spectrum auction, on the quantum or on the pricing. At this point, the message going out is that two leading telcos, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone-Idea, are reluctant to go for an auction this year, while Reliance Jio seems ready. The government, on its part, is looking at the last quarter of this calendar for holding the auctions. Going by the current level of internet connectivity, there’s no doubt that telcos are either running low on the appropriate spectrum or they are not spending enough on the required infrastructure. Either way, the telecom operators, reeling under financial stress, must invest. 
 

To come out with a successful e-governance model, the government needs telcos and other technology companies as partners. And therefore they cannot work in silos. A meeting of the Digital Communications Commission (earlier Telecom Commission) on Thursday is likely to give some clarity on the way ahead.

Whether or not Chinese major Huawei, caught in a massive global jam, can be part of the telecom universe in India will also tilt the pace of the government’s tech initiative. India hasn’t spelt out its stand on Huawei yet.

Digital India, a signature scheme of this government since it came to power in 2014, has seen mixed results so far. For it to stand out and blend with the PM’s latest focus on “more tech in government”, all ministries and departments must walk the talk on things like artificial intelligence, blockchain, internet of things and big data. 

If the 2019 Lok Sabha election was fought on the might of online social media, similar internet-led services could be used for governance as well. PM Modi had begun his first stint with visits to top tech campuses in America’s Bay Area and followed that up with meetings and interactions for collaborations towards ease of living and ease of doing business. The momentum was lost somewhere in between and tech majors such as Google, Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter made headlines mainly for breaches ranging from data leak to inappropriate forwards to not having India representatives in place. 

In fact, a draft e-commerce policy prepared by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade a few months ago was largely dedicated to data localisation, sending confusing signals to stakeholders. 

While data security is a priority for any government, Modi 2.0 should strike a balance to shift its goalpost towards quality access to technology, which will enable both effective governance and ease of living to the citizens of this country.