Development Gateway Foundation (www.developmentgateway.org)

The Petersberg Prize 2004 (www.developmentgateway.org/prize)

Nomination Form for The Petersberg Prize

For Exemplary Contributions to Information and Communication Technologies for Development

Information about the Nominee:

 

Name:                                                  Sanjay Jaju

Institutional Affiliation:                         Indian Administrative Service

Address:                                               Collector- West Godavari, Eluru (AP) India

Phone Number:                                   +91 98491 32344

Information about the Nomination:
 

What are the specific successes promoting information and communication technologies for development for which you are nominating this person/institution?

 

The nominee has been associated with ICT for development initiatives over the last several years in his various stints in the Indian Civil Service.  The nominee has made significant contributions in this area.  Currently while working as District Administrator (from Oct 2002 till date), in addition to the responsibility of looking after the administration in the district, he has pioneered a rural e-governance initiative called e-seva( services).  The project e Seva (e services) of  West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh in India purports to bridge the digital divide in the rural areas and uses Information Technology for providing access to various C2C (citizen-to-citizen) and C2G (citizen-to-government) services to the citizens.  These services range from the issuance of various certificates to getting information about various programmes and also go to the extent of networking citizens to each other and allow them the flexibility and convenience of mutually beneficial transactions. These centres are uniquely managed by the self help groups and position them as information leaders and change agents to improve the transparency and accountability in government operations.  Under this project, (www.westgodavari.org) web enabled kiosks have been established in rural areas.  The horizontal portal has been eventually put on the global World Wide Web and thus allows vertical integration with the expanding frontiers of universal knowledge and information bank.  The unique thing about these centres is that they are run and managed by the women self help groups and have been able to position the rural women as information leaders to help bridge the gender divide.  In order to save on the networking cost, project has developed a unique synchronization tool that allows the kiosks to work offline and allows the databases to be periodically synchronized in minimal time.  However the project has now evolved to a hybrid network architecture using the wireless 802.11b for the district headquarter and the Wireless Loop networking within the district to provide a 24x7 online connectivity to the offices and kiosks.

 

This project won the National IT Award of the Computer Society of India for the year 2002.  The project also won the Prestigious “Tony Zeitoun ICT Stories Competition” of the IICD/GKP (Global Knowledge Partnerships) at the World Summit on Information Society in Geneva.  The project also won the Gender ICT Award of the Global Knowledge Partnerships at the WSIS-Geneva.  The project has also won the nomination for the Stockholm Challenge Award for the year 2004 for its exemplary contribution to e-democracy.

 

In his earlier stint as Municipal Commissioner in Visakhapatnam (AP, India) ( Oct 2000 to Oct 2002), a comprehensive facility “Saukaryam” was initiated and completed to improve delivery of the civic services given by the Municipal corporation and has become a flagship project providing immense benefits to citizens.  An organization that was running with a deficit of over Rs 300 million was turned around to a Rs1000 million surplus organization.  Under this project, a Metro Area Network encompassing 120 Sq.Kms had been created through broad band/leased circuits.  A large number of banks for accepting municipal payments and various Municipal Offices had been put on this Metro Area Network and connected to each other.  A local area Network encompassing all wings of the Municipal Corporation formed the backbone to this Metro Area Network.  This Network had been in turn web enabled to provide access to citizens through a utility driven web site for multiple services.  For the citizens who do not have access to the Computer or Internet, a fully computerized City Civic Centres on the network had been created delivering the same set of services. The project covers the whole gamut of civic services ranging from the facility of online payment of dues to allowing lodging of grievances online or filing building plan applications and getting their status without running from pillar to post. There also is a facility for the hospitals to send Birth and Death information online helping citizens get their certificates instantly.

The project was the only project in the year 2001 from India to have been nominated for the Stockholm Challenge Award for the best IT Usage in Public Service and Democracy category.  The Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation Web site (www.saukaryam.org) has been awarded the best Web site for the Municipal Corporations in India because of its utilities, by the National Institute of Urban Affairs, which is a Nodal agency for the development of Urban Local Bodies in the Country.  The project also won the National IT Award instituted by the Computer Society of India for the best IT usage for the year 2001.The project won the Cyber City Award instituted by the United Nations Development Programme that entitles a grant of 20,000 US Dollars for expansion of these services in other cities.  The project ‘Saukaryam’ won the ‘Crisil’ award for e governance for the year 2002.

 

Prior to this the nominee while implementing the project for Universalization of primary education in 34 districts of Madhya Pradesh (Sept 99-Oct 2000), was associated with the award winning ‘Education Guarantee Scheme’. An IT project titled ‘Headstart’ for computer enabled education was initiated and completed by him during this period.

 

The nominee as testified by his CV has made tremendous contributions in furthering the cause of ICT4D.  He has made numerous presentations globally and still carries a burning desire to do well in future.

 

What were the benefits that resulted from those events? Be as specific as possible in  terms of the numbers of people who benefited directly and indirectly, and the nature of  the benefits they received.

 

The project e seva has had a tremendous impact in furthering the gender and digital unite in this district.  On the one hand, it has been able to buttress the women self help groups while on the other hand it has been able to provide the civic services to the citizens in the user friendly and hassle free manner. With almost over 160 kiosks operating in the district the project has been able to carryout more than 800000 transactions relating to various C2C and G2C services so far.  Every grievance is acknowledged and transferred online for bringing in field level action.  They have also so far received over 7000 different grievances from citizens through this project out of which over 6000 of them pertaining to various problems have been redressed.  The real time summary statistics and performance summary statement of the individual departments can be seen and verified. The citizens can verify and track the status of its disposal online. The project has been able to support development of a citizen centric land records system resulting in evolution of a transparent and effective land record delivery system which fully addresses the insecurities and concerns of the farmers. The project has helped in the creation of a knowledge and information economy thereby bringing in more opportunities and prosperity to the impoverished areas of this district.  The project has also induced transparency in the implementation of the government programs and has facilitated weeding out ineligible cases so that corresponding benefits can be passed down to the needy.

 

The project provides benefit to over 5 million people mostly coming from the marginalized sections of the community spanning over 7000 sq kms of geographical area.  In terms of direct cost savings to the citizens, this could easily be in the range of US $ 5 million over the last two years, the project is on.  This is very important for poor people who without access to these services suffer at the hands of insensitive and corrupt bureaucracy.  The project has also helped in providing self employment opportunities and a source of income to beneficiaries running the kiosks rendering the IT enabled services.

 

The design of this project is fairly simple.  On the one hand, the project has been able to spread the need for IT solutions and back end computerization amongst the various government departments while on the other hand has been able to provide access to various government services to the citizens through the kiosks run by the women self help groups on commercially viable lines.  The additional burden on the government through this project is therefore almost minimal and the investment of the project is shared across the wider cross section of the people.  That is the reason why the replication of this initiative should not be a problem anywhere else.  The project has only taken two months from conception to commissioning because of involvement of multiple stakeholders and thus has huge potential for replication in hinterland elsewhere and should be considered as the USP of this project.  Many districts in India have been drawing inspiration and shaping their projects.

 

The results in the previous project (Saukaryam) have been stupendous.  Ever since the project has been commissioned, the work has become a talk of the town.  The citizens are surprised and enthused by the ease with which their needs are getting attended to without running from pillar to post as before.  For a thing as basic as paying their dues, the kind of harassment they used to face at the hands of insensitive and corrupt bureaucracy has all been eliminated after the advent of this project.  This is clearly established by the jump which corporation revenue collection has shown after the current system was put into place.  A small complaint like abrupt drinking water supply or non-functional streetlight that used to take months to float into the system gets attended in no time.  The citizen forum has become a virtual meeting place for the citizens who are freely airing their views for the city development, an opportunity which was a prerogative earlier only of few leaders in a representative democracy.  The city civic center acting as one stop civic shop is a living example of ‘Digital Unite’ as the citizens coming from diverse social and economic background take advantage of it for getting their civic needs attended to.   The attitudes of the Municipal employees towards citizens that previously conveyed a relationship of Benefactor-Beneficiary has changed to that of Principal-Client.  The citizens feel truly empowered and corruption and nepotism has reduced greatly.

 

The statistics reveal that over 4,000 people make use of this facility every day either through the banking net work or through the City Civic Centre or through the Internet.  There are over 25,000 Registered Users for the Corporation Web Site while the civic centre receives over 400 citizens every day reflecting its popularity across the whole range of communities.

 

The internal computerisation has helped in improvement of internal efficiency and the coordination between various wings of the corporation has improved due to system networking.  The works management system has brought in transparency in execution of infrastructure works and is enabling optimum allocation of resources amongst various areas. 

 

The Project has already become a pilot project for Municipal governments and is being replicated elsewhere.  Many other Municipal Corporations have been visiting them to learn about the project and they have themselves gone a bit ahead and have implemented the similar project in adjoining urban local bodies.  The Memorandum of Understanding entered into with a private partner for patenting and international marketing is also a step to disseminate the idea and the process.

The project documentation and paper has been presented in many national and international forums and seminars.  It figures in the list of papers published in UNHCS workshop held in Sept 2001 by the Ministry of Urban development of India.  The National Open University and the National Academy of Administration have also accepted the project as a training module under e-governance. 

 

How was the contribution of the nominee critical to achieving these successes? Without  that contribution, what would have happened?

 

Both these projects are a clear amplification of the efforts put in by the nominee and his relentless pursuit in furthering the development cause by making use of the gains offered by information technology.  Both these initiatives have not come out of an external fiat but have been conceptualized, planned and implemented locally with limited resources primarily emerging out of the inner convictions the nominee has about his goal, vision and self belief.   In all his efforts in this area, he has always kept one major principle in mind.  Instead of resorting to mindless computerization, the effort was to identify the government processes that had a bearing on citizens and their comfort levels and to make efforts to improve upon them with the right dose of technology, imagination and alacrity.  The nominee believes that speed and innovation are the two things that differentiate good, bad and ugly in administration.  Anything that does not bear the former in mind would have no chance of success as the time on hand to any bureaucrat is quite limited and within this small quotient of time it is for him to not just learn the situation but to make efforts to improve upon the same and make it attain sufficient critical mass so that it is not undone by his successor, inadvertently or deliberately.  Innovation helps in thinking laterally and helps in giving bolder ideas to run of the mill situations and allows having a fresh look at things instead of relooking at them from different angles.  Innovation has been one thing; the nominee harps on in plenty. 

 

The Vizag and West Godavari experiences are the cases in point wherein the incubation time has been kept at minimum and the endeavor was to do things quick and fast with the initial beginning within three months wherein planning and implementation go hand in hand gaining mutually.  The two projects have gradually evolved over a period of time and have gotten a look that was not envisaged even initially.  All this is a clear testimony to the imagination and foresight of the nominee.

 

These projects dispel a myth that the Information Technology solution is anti poor and is an unaffordable luxury to nations like India.  One has to only realize that information technology is only a tool that influences the objective and if the objective is to make the system more transparent, open and accountable, there is no way it can be anti poor.  Most of the rural areas suffer on account of lack of right information regarding the markets, products, agriculture, health, weather, education etc and if all this can be addressed through connectivity and information technology, a sea change can be brought in the conditions of the rural communities. This is why creation of a knowledge and information economy can bring in more opportunities and thereby prosperity to the impoverished areas than any other rhetoric.  The projects recognize that and envisage that the countries become knowledge hubs and gain symbiotically from each other and derive benefits from the global networks.

Development experts are only too painfully aware of the "digital divide", which separates all those who do not enjoy the benefits of being connected – not just to the Internet, but to the telephone itself – from those in the cities who take these things for granted. As we are constantly reminded at world development meets, there is a staggering number of people who have never made a phone call in their lives, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.  These projects have been able to modify this paradigm. These projects are a method in achieving the citizen centering of the various services being offered by the government and have helped in fixing the responsibilities of the various government departments to follow the citizen charter while delivering these services.

Describe your relationship with the nominee, and how you observed the contributions for  which you are nominating him or her.

 

The nominee is my husband but that’s only a part of our relationship, and a very small part. Of course that allows me to know him very closely and my observations as above reflect this proximity.  Personal proximity apart, in my official dealings as a WHO consultant in the same district where he is the Administrator, I got to know of his passion and intensity for using ICT to improve people’s lives.  The web enabled Patient based Monitoring system that we jointly developed for the tuberculosis patients in this district has become a National model and would go a long way in better monitoring and cure of the TB patients. The women self help groups which has been the symbol of gender empowerment in this district have shown the way and have come forward to take up the responsibility of running the kiosks.  Although this association holds lot of economic promise to these women but it is nonetheless the fact that it is also fraught with lot of risks both economic and social.  This initiative of the nominee purports to break the age old traditions and beliefs that women are inferior to men and therefore subjects these groups to hostile reactions from the vested interests.  As a woman, it gives me immense cheers.