The Prime Minister continues to emphasise the need of technology for driving the development in the country. Rightly so. On every occasion that I met the PM in a meeting or informally, his focus on technology was unwavering. Yet, all Ministries in Government of India haven’t taken even the rudimentary steps towards use of technology. There is no reason to see hard files on the tables of the officers of moving (when they do move despite the proverbial red tape) in the corridors of government offices. But you can still find them.
My first brush with the technology came in 1991 when I was District Magistrate, Lakhimpur-Kheri. This was by way of installing a photo-copying machine in the Record Room despite resistance form “interested” parties. This single technological intervention reduced the unavoidable drudgery of copying each document manually and, above all, eliminated “speed money” that was otherwise being paid to obtain a copy of land records. The possibility of manipulating documents was also eliminated.
I continued to use technology subsequently in every assignment. It helped me and the institutions enormously. Technology enabled the launch and roll out of the largest health insurance scheme (Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana –RSBY) IN 2007. This scheme was not only cashless and arguably the first paperless scheme in the world. It was the first scheme in the country that provided portable benefits to the beneficiary. The scheme benefitted millions of poor and came to be recognised world over and was selected as one of the social security scheme by UNDP and ILO for publication. It was the technological backbone of the scheme that enabled the scheme to cashless, paperless and portable. The Prime Minister’s Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) has benefitted enormously from the lessons emerging out of RSBY.
Later in the year 2013 I was asked to head the Project Monitoring Group (PMG) to fast track large projects (Rs 1000 crore and above) that were stuck for want of clearances. This was the time when all the scams were breaking out and civil servants were averse to committing themselves on files. Technology was put to use yet again. On this occasion it was to fast track clearances. A web-based programme was put in place. Any industry proponent could create his own login and password and upload their cases pertaining to a specific ministry and/or state. Simultaneously, each ministry was asked to designate a Joint-Secretary level officer as the nodal officer. Once the project was accepted for consideration by the PMG, the project details and the issues relating to the Ministry went automatically to the concerned nodal officers along with an automatic mailer. The nodal officer was mandated to provide the comments on the portal itself. These were then discussed in a tri-partite meeting so that status could be updated directly on to the portal. Thus the progress was transparently monitored clearly bringing out where the decision was stuck. Similar discussions were held at the state level. Use of technology to usher in transparency had startling results. In jus fifteen months, projects worth more than Rs five lakh crore were cleared and one Cabinet Minister lost her job for sitting on files.
Use of technology played an extremely important role in sorting out the problems of the coal sector. Anything that could have gone wrong had gone wrong with the sector. There was acute shortage of coal. There was a mad rush for acquiring coal mines some way or the other. This led to the alleged coal scam. The Supreme Court cancelled all the mines allotted since 1990s. The mines had to be allocated afresh through a bidding process. Yet again, technology came handy. A two-stage online electronic process was put in place. The entire data base of coal mines (including Geographical Reports) was made available in electronic format to the bidders. The bidders could bid only for such mines whose documents they purchased online. In the first stage of the auction, an initial price offer (IPO) was to be submitted, along with the technical bid, on an e-auction platform in encrypted form. For the eauction, the window was for 2 hours with the auto extending option of 8 minutes each till bids ceased within that period. The coal block auctions clearly demonstrated that the transparent use of IT applications could help realising the “fair” value of natural resources. There was no complaint against any part of the process.
Technology can be a game changer in any sphere of governance. However, the problem is not with technology. It is available. The real problem is with the attitude of those that have to use it. Hence, there is a need to push it from the top. Doing away with files and papers both in the Ministry of Coal and the Department of School Education and Literacy where I was posted as Secretary enabled me to travel to the states and interact with them. There was no pendency of files when I travelled as they could be cleared on the move. Much of what happened in both these sectors was on account of the interaction with the state level officials in the field. Coal production reached unprecedented levels by taking the states on board, by listening to them and by persuading them to play ball. This could not have been possible sitting in Delhi. I didn’t convene a single meeting of the states in Delhi during my two-year tenure as Secretary in the Coal Ministry. Problems lie in the field and the senior officers of the Central Government have to travel down to the field to understand them and assist in their resolution. This is possible only if technology is used. It can be used and it should be used if we have to fulfil the dreams of the Prime Minister.
Anil Swarup has served as the head of the Project Monitoring Group, which is currently under the Prime Minister’s Office. He has also served as Secretary, Ministry of Coal and Secretary, Ministry of School Education.