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Enable Elected Representatives

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

Governance in a democracy like India requires the constant interplay of three of the four pillars of democracy: the citizen, the bureaucracy and the elected representatives of the citizens. Unfortunately, most e-governance systems give the go by to the elected representatives.This is extremely sad, since elected representatives have a significant role in enabling governance, and they carry the mandate to intervene on behalf of their electors, both in the legislature and with the bureaucracy. 

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E-governance information portals can play a very critical role in such enablement in two ways. By giving aggregate information with drill down capabilities on citizens needs and wants to the elected representatives, and by enabling, in a transparent fashion, citizen-representative, citizen-bureaucracy and representative-bureaucracy interaction for problem solving.However, there are complexities here that are normally not faced by enterprise-level information systems. 

To start with, the objectives and frame of reference of the three groups, the citizen, the bureaucracy and the elected representatives, are all different. The citizen is concerned with the immediate redressal of his grievances and achievement of his wants. The elected representative has to balance the needs of his constituents, invariably has to prioritize them and works on a longer time frame-usually five years. We also need to accept his need to get re-elected at the end of this five-year period. The bureaucracy normally works on a much longer time frame-possibly as long as the career span of a single bureaucrat and beyond-and has to ensure continuity of systems and processes and the rule of the law. For any system interfacing these three groups to be successful, it has to align with and deliver the benefits and objectives that each of the groups wants to achieve. It cannot be focused toward delivering the goods for any one group, while giving nothing in return to the other two, for their contribution.

Walking the talk



Traditionally, publications talk of what others have done. Rarely do they come up with implementable ideas or do they get their own hands dirty. We at PCQuest beg to be different. In the true spirit of implementing workable solutions, PCQuest took this idea of creating a citizen-bureaucracy-representative interaction portal to CDIT.


I spent time with the CDIT team at Kayamkulam, discussing and debating the viability of such a project. After fine-tuning the idea based on their inputs, we met Shri MM Hassan, MLA. 


Based on these interactions, CDIT has agreed to pursue the project as a pilot in the Kayamkulam Assembly constituency, and if successful, replicate it across the state of Kerala. 

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Also, elected representatives do not form a uniform entity. Given our multi-tier Panchayati Raj based democracy, we have more than one representative interested in the same citizen. For example, a citizen elects a Panchayat member, a Municipal representative or a Corporation Councilor at the lowest rung of our democracy. The same citizen also elects an MLA and an MP. Each of these representatives could be from different political combines, and could be in the opposition or in government at different levels. Also, these elections are held at different times. Hence you could have an almost constant flow of new representatives requiring information in a different format, from a different perspective or just in a different way.

Then there are privacy and transparency issues. When citizens register complaints or requests with certain departments, should his neighbor have access to the question or to the answer? Should the common citizen have access to aggregate information like total questions asked versus the number of questions answered? Once an election has been announced, should the elected representative get the same information as before? Better still, should all the candidates in the fray get the same information privileges (note that I said information privileges and not access privileges-all citizens should have access to such a resource) till the election results are announced?

How should citizens be identified and provided access to the system? Should it be on the basis of their name being on the electoral rolls? What about those who do not have their names on the rolls or those who have not attained voting age? Should people from another area be allowed to search the system and ask queries? If not what about someone wanting to, say, buy property in that area, and asking for the procedure to register the purchase?

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Assuming for the time being that the issues raised above can be resolved (see later on in this article for possible solutions), what we are talking of is a citizen information portal on which citizens can raise queries with the government, or search for standard procedures and forms and the like. The aggregate of citizen queries including qualitative information and pending ones could be reported to the elected representatives as well as senior officials for information and intervention if required. The system could also provide a direct interface between the people and their elected representatives, with the people being able to directly interface and interact with their representatives.

The system could also be used to disseminate information to the people on issues like date of disbursal of agricultural inputs, availability of officials and elected representatives, and usage of development funds placed by elected representatives.

Building interaction portals: The Kayamkulam experiment



The Centre for Development of Imaging Technology is one of the premier nodal agencies for IT implementation in Government for the state of Kerala. 



Kayamkulam is a picturesque seaside locality in the south of Kerala. The assembly constituency covers one Municipality and five Panchayats and has an electorate of about 1.45 lakh. In turn, it falls under the Alapuzha parliamentary constituency. Primary occupations include fresh water fishing and agriculture, including cash crops. A significant portion of the population falls under the "non-resident" category being resident and employed in the Middle East, or elsewhere in the country or state. CDIT has a Regional centre at
Kayamkulam. 

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Opinion: Focus
M M Hassan: Former Minister for Information and Parliamentary Affairs and MLA from Kayamkulam

The areas we start with should be those that are of maximum benefit to the population. They should also be such that people's representatives can successfully intervene on behalf of the citizen. From my experience, these include the panchayat or municipality office, the healthcare system and government hospitals, the electricity board and the transport department including the public transport system. More can be added subsequently.



I will personally follow up for funding of the project and to get all concerned departments to participate in the project. Let's make it successful and then replicate it in all constituencies. 

Briefly the project will have two parts: a frequently asked questions database and a query and associated tracking system. The pilot will not cover all departments or even all aspects of the selected departments. The initial areas to cover are being chosen such that these areas together affect a significant cross section of the local population. That is, while any one of these may affect only a smaller section, together, they would be of importance to a larger cross section. This criterion is important, as otherwise the project may not be able to achieve the critical mass required to take off.

The FAQ database would cover a larger ambit and would include the process and documentation required for most common tasks, like how to register with the local employment exchange, how to apply for an agricultural subsidy, how to apply for a resurvey of landed property, etc.In time, at least a part of these processes themselves will be made online, as part of this system. This database will take away repetitive questions from the citizens.

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It has to be borne in mind that the objective is not the computerization of the departments. The portal can be enabled without full computerization of the departments, simply by using data entry operators at identified offices to populate the system. When computerization of departments does happen, our system can directly interface with them. Similarly, on the citizen front, we could use kiosks placed at easily accessible points and manned by data entry operators till such time as the citizens become computer literate, and have access to computers and the Internet. The citizen would also be able to access the system on his own, via the Internet, from a cyber cafe or even the comfort of his home. In fact, wherever possible, existing infrastructure like cyber cafes, schools and the like should be actively encouraged to become access points to the portal. For most interactions, standard templates would have to be built with drop boxes and the like, to enable ease of operation. 

Case Study: Middle men
Rajeev Chawla IAS:

Secretary e-governance and Special Secretary (Bhoomi) Revenue Department, Government of

Karnataka

Handle middlemen through a process and not through politics or brute force. 



Take the case of Rural Digital Services, currently piloting in Mandya district. We found that the middlemen were coming to the RDS instead of citizens. First we tried filing police cases against them. Finally, we decided to handle the problem through a process. The solution was simple. When a person comes to the RDS, his photograph is taken with a webcam and his signature is also captured. This is used to verify the identity of the person.

For the elected representatives, report formats will be developed, and enough customization should be possible. Each representative should have detailed access to information about his constituency, and possibly comparative information about other constituencies.

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In order to make it effective, the system will have a minimum of three levels of followup in the bureaucracy. So, when a citizen raises a query with, say, the village office, the system will have provision to escalate it to the concerned taluk office and to the district collectorate when appropriate necessary. This facility should be available to the citizen, when redressal is delayed, to the concerned official when required and to the system itself, automatically, when a preset timeframe for closure elapses without action. Superior officers should have access to reports for monitoring purposes. So, even in the pilot, secretary level bureaucrats and even ministers of the concerned departments should have access. 

So, how do we address the concerns raised earlier on in this piece. More work needs to be done in this area to evolve stable and long lasting answers. Meanwhile I will attempt to provide a basic framework for answering some of the issues.

Let us start with identification and access. Given that there is no uniform and universally accepted database of citizens, we will probably end up creating a new one for the portal. Citizens could be given accounts on such a portal based on their name and residential address. Citizens could store all their correspondence for reference in these accounts. Password protection of the accounts could be an issue, and some robust, but easily useable mechanism will have to be worked out.

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Access should be provided to everyone, including the rest of the world over the Internet. But accounts could be restricted to citizens residing in the area concerned.

Others who want to raise one off queries could be allowed to do so, possibly on payment of a fee.

What about citizens who do not know how to operate computers? In our plan, we are talking of using data entry operators. Initially, the operators could be employed by the project itself, and over time, they could be absorbed in various departments as they get computerized. How do we ensure that the citizen knows what the data entry operator is doing? A simple solution would be to provide two monitors in the public kiosks, one facing the data entry operator and the other the citizen.

Krishna kumar

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