Introduction:
‘Saukaryam’ which literally translates to ‘facility’, is an e-Governance project launched by the Greater Vishakapatnam Municipal Corporation to shift civic service rendering to an online platform. On an average day, about several thousand citizens approach the local government, looking for civic services. However, it is impossible to carry out every request with the utmost efficiency. There is always the bane of human error and too less (human) resources. The solution to this is bringing in the boon of technology to keep things forward. Vishakhapatnam has used Information Technology to launch ‘Saukaryam’, a radical initiative to serve its local citizens.
Saukaryam, the e-Governance project, is an attempt by the local government to instil more transparency, accountability, and efficiency into delivering civic services. The Project is under a public-private partnership.
This paper attempts to shed light on and evaluate the working and implementation of this Project.
All statistical data presented has been acquired from the paper titled ‘Saukaryam: an e-Governance initiative of Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation’ by S. Kameswar Rao.
Before Saukaryam
Ere looking into the Project itself, let us understand the position before the Project’s launch and what factors pushed the government to consider using Information and Communication Technology to ease the process.
Long queues, frequent bribing cases, insensitivity of workers and customers, and a complete lack of accountability pushed the government towards this Project. The use of Information and Communication Technology eliminated the burdensome amount of paperwork which cause inept monitoring and added extra hours to the employees work hours. Previously, what can now be done in one sitting was done over several days, by visiting several offices.[1]
Working of Saukaryam
The Saukaryam project covers 120 sq. km, referred to as the Metro Area Network, created through broadband/ leased circuits. Several banks are under this Metro Area Network, intending to collect ‘municipal payments’.
Once added to the Network, various municipal Offices under the Municipal Corporation are interconnected to the bank and each other.
The Network, the backbone of a local area network that encompasses all Municipal Corporation divisions, is web-enabled, and citizens can access civic services. Through this, citizens can file grievances, access services, make any due payments online, tax collection, birth/death registration, and a host of other areas, under Saukaryam.[2]
Once set up, the staff received training. Hence, past and future records have seen computerisation, and private partners, chosen for the intended public-private partnership.
With Information and Communication Technology’s help, the Vishakapatnam Municipal Corporation aimed to satisfy the citizens and maintain local bodies, and reduce the stress on both sides. Tasks that usually would take weeks is now doable with the click of a button.
Technology Used
“Intranet applications are developed utilising ASP, SQL Server, Visual Basic, and Oracle on the Windows NT operating system. Internet applications obtain development using ASP on IIS 4.0, JSP, SQL Server 7.0, Oracle 8.0. The operating system used is Windows NT, Windows 98, Unix, Linux, while the RDBMS is on SQL Server 7.0., Oracle 8.0. The Component Object Module is utilised as ‘middleware’ while the Front-end is in Visual Basic 6.0., ASP 2.0., JSP. The entire system consists of more than ten server-class computers and more than a hundred peripheral nodes linked over a broadband network.”[3]
A Few Services under Saukaryam
As we now know, Saukaryam is a project that utilised Information and Communication Technology to ease civic services and dispense efficient aid. Here are a few areas that have seen simplification under Saukaryam, with the use of such Information Technology.[4]
- Making Payments: Citizens can now make payments of such things like rents, taxes, user charges, duties, electricity and telephone bills etc. online.
- Complains and Grievances: One can file complains, or suggestions regarding government services here, after which tracking of the redressal status is present online.
- Certification: If a citizen requires authentic certification from respective government authorities such as birth or death certificates or property deeds, it is easily achievable with the help of Information and Communication Technology (hereafter referred to as ICT).
- Online Citizen Forum: The Projects provides for the Website to be accessible to citizens to conduct online forums where they can interact and discuss any issues they have and come up with possible solutions.
- Tracking Garbage Lifting: The lifting and dumping of garbage was an undocumented activity that made way for inefficiency and corruption. Now, computerisation helps with uploading such data to the Website. The helps citizens track the garbage lifting system, and authorities to streamline operations to maintain sanitation. Citizens can also access sanitation and water plans and view the authorities behind it.
Another use is, intra-governmental departments can contact, send services or depend on each other easily.
Setting up of Civic Centres
The official Website launched by the Vishakapatnam Municipal Corporation is www.saukaryam.org and is on a public-private platform.
To ensure the Project’s smooth working, the Municipal Corporation set up ‘Civic Centres’ consisting of computers on the Network that dispenses civic services. It is a reasonable understanding that not every citizen has personal access to computer systems and the world wide web, which is where these civic centres enter.
As the Civic Center is on the Network and linked to the central server connected via the Global Internet Protocol, people can monitor their applications’ status on the Website. Each applicant gets a unique registration number whose usage is also to monitor the position of the application.
Citizens’ view on the adequacy of e-service centres: 61.9% of respondents agreed that there is a sufficient number of e-service centres and 10.8% disagreed that there is an adequate number of e-service centres.[5]
Security
In addition to the facilities, one of the most essential things is protection and security. As a result, users sharing this database via intranet has a password without which one does not receive access to the database. Access to the database is often restricted to the specifications of the individual user. Daily transactions are posted in an encrypted format in a separate database, so existing information is accessible for comparison with encrypted data to detect and prevent tampering, hacking or misuse. The prospects of implementing firewalls and other security measures will also be discussed and introduced in the future.
An overall look at the Project’s aims lead one to believe that it will be smooth sailing all the way, and efficiency will be achieved, with all operations running without a hitch. While this is the aim, it is only reasonable to expect certain discrepancies to creep in. Inadequacies and irregularities led to the ICT not being used to its full power. Let us look at the issues that have arisen with the implementation of Project Saukaryam.
Issues regarding Project Saukaryam
These issues are from the Comptroller and Auditor General of India’s first report on Panchayat Raj Institutes and Urban Local Bodies, prepared under Article 151 (2), for the Governor of Andhra Pradesh, for the year-end of March 2006.
- The System Requirement Specifications (SRS) were set only five years after the implementation of Project Saukaryam.
- Soukaryam also doesn’t have a bulletin Module for audit trails. Logs were incomplete, endangering the system to insufficient accountability.
- The annual budget figures of the Vishakapatnam Municipal Corporation did not match the statistics on the computer database, suggesting inconsistencies. Income collections relating to property taxes, water charges and lease charges of Rs 1.85 crore had remained unaccounted.
- Citizen complaints and grievances filed through the Website faced little to no redressal.
36.7% and 32.1% of citizens felt that their grievances addressed were satisfactory, or inadequate respectively.[6]
Another constraint faced after launching the Project was raising awareness about the Website and civic centres, to encourage citizen usage of the same.
Citizens’ view on the efficiency of the e-services provided were, about 60 per cent of respondents favoured that e-services administered by the Municipal Corporation are trustworthy.
Conclusion
In completion, it is safe to say that Project Saukaryam has been a success despite the setbacks discussed. It has reportedly increased the Corporation’s revenue flow and has also received the ‘Best Website’ award from the National Institute of Urban Affairs. Another honour bestowed upon it was the ‘National IT Award’ for ‘Best IT Usage’ in 2001, which was instituted by the Computer Society of India. Yet another accolade it has received is the UNDP’s ‘Cyber City Award’, along with a grant of 20,000 USD for the purpose of expanding the Project to other cities.[7]
Effective implementation of this e-governance project is an area to be focused upon in order to obtain maximum efficiency and fulfil all aims of the Project.
Therefore, despite the hitches arisen along the way, which any prudent person may expect, Saukaryam, Vishkapatnam’s e-Governance project, is one to be learnt from and beheld.
References:
[1] JAJU, S. e-Governance in India: Saukaryam experiences Sjaju.blogspot.com, http://sjaju.blogspot.com/2001/12/e-governance-in-india-saukaryam.html (last visited Jan 21, 2021)
[2] Ibid
[3] Supra 1
[4] UNIT 12 SAUKARYAM: ICT PROJECT IN VISAKHAPATNAM MUNICIPAL CORPORATION, ANDHRA PRADESH, Egyankosh.ac.in, http://www.egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/25868/1/Unit-12.pdf (last visited Jan 21, 2021)
[5] S. Kameswar Rao, Saukaryam: an e-Governance initiative of Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation, International Journal of Management, Technology And Engineering (2019), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330039583_Saukaryam_an_e-Governance_initiative_of_Greater_Visakhapatnam_Municipal_Corporation (last visited Jan 21, 2021)
[6] Ibid
[7] Supra 4
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