Emergent e-governance ecosystem development in Bellandur, Karnataka

Author : Amit Pande, http://www.me.umn.edu/~amit
Date added : 2003-09-26

Brief Project Background

This is a story about the evolution of India’s first ICT enabled Gram Panchayat (Smallest Administration unit of a few villages) in Bellandur, Karnataka.

From a successful pilot project in 1999, to an emergent ecosystem for e-governance in 2003, Bellandur has seen plenty of milestones, potholes, and bumps on the road to self-sustainability.

Today, Bellandur is a visible field demonstration of corporate initiated private-public partnerships to meet the needs of rural India. Somewhere in the complex problem space of e-governance, this is a story of effort, learning, and evolution. A solution using ICT.

Situated about 40 km from India’s IT capital Bangalore, Bellandur is a comparatively well off Gram Panchayat (GP). Bellandur is assured of year-round irrigation for rice cultivation and vegetable farming from the Bellandur Lake. The main industry in Bellandur is garment manufacturing, which employs a large section of women from middle-class households. There are also a large number of government employees living here, who commute to Bangalore daily.

In 1998, Bellandur village acquired its first computer, to replace an ageing typewriter. Hearing about this development, we were delighted since Bellandur was an ideal site for deployment of India’s first ICT based “e-governance” solution at the local level. Thus, COMPUSOL approached the Village Development Committee and offered to implement an e-governance solution for the GP, free of development costs.

Mr. Jagannath, the President of the Committee, was more than willing to let us use Bellandur as a case study for implementing a GP level Local Administration Solution and exploring its implications for the rest of India.

Beginning work on the Bellandur GP Solution

Despite our enthusiasm, we experienced some serious attitude issues when we went to the Bellandur site. At the outset, we were told that the political-bureaucratic-social machinery and its entrenched power structure would never accept the system.

Consequently, in Bellandur, before any design decisions, we kept our ears to the ground. We wanted to include features would help rural citizens the most and disrupt the socio-political fabric the least. After initial contextual research, we decided to at least include Property Transactions, Water Billing, Trading, Licenses, and a Financial Tracking System for the GP.

Over the next few months, we developed the GP software for the local Kannada language, using ASP and MSDE. Interestingly, the first versions of this Intranet Graphical User Interface corresponded to the physical notebooks of the bill collectors and field staff at the office, since the rural end users felt much more confident of a system that initially simulated the existing office processes.

The rationale behind both functionality and architecture decisions was the same: Trust and Confidence. We wanted the rural citizens and government staff to feel comfortable with e-governance, and this could only be done iteratively.

With an eye towards extending industry best practices to e-governance, we strongly followed our in house processes in software engineering, including the Unified Modeling Language and the Rational Unified Process.

This phased approach started with Data Entry and Validation and ended with a roll out of the system after iterative Usability and Acceptance testing.
(Details of the actors, activities, detailed functionality, and development approach are at:
http://www.compusolsoftware.com/iceg-2003-aspsrj-egovbellandur.pdf)

Results

The developmental Impact:

A lot of ICT implementers Seriously believe that ANY well-developed ICT system will definitely convey benefits to rural users.

The hard fact is that despite several ambitious “pilot” projects, most ICT interventions in India that are not supported by large state governments or giant multi national corporations, have died out after their initial hoopla.

We believe a more critical look at ICT benefits is in order. Anecdotal evidence of ICT success is simply NOT enough. We need detailed quantitative results on transactions, usage patterns, follow up mechanisms, and live feedback loops.

With the support of the Bellandur GP, we have been continuously monitoring context and extent of use for e-governance since 2000, for real time impact assessment.

We have now documented the following quantitative benefits to Bellandur GP.
Increased revenue: In 1999-2000, the revenue to the local body was INR (Indian Rupees) 1,421,000. Instead of the normal story of tax collections rolling over to the next year, Bellandur managed to collect additionally INR 1,414,000 by Dec 31, 1999 itself. Today Bellandur has seen rapid urbanization and revenues have grown to an astronomical INR 1.7 Million in just 3 years.
New public services: Empowered by the overwhelming participation of the citizens, the local administration also used the generated revenues into construction of roads and bore wells. Citizens now have access to clean drinking water and pay a monthly tax of INR 25. Bellandur also now has one of the most sophisticated underground Sewage systems in the state (as much as Bangalore!), which was facilitated through this additional revenue

We also documented qualitative benefits that have come to Bellandur over this period.

Spillover Effect: Among the visitors to Bellandur Local Body Administration was Mr. U R Sabhapathi, the Member of Legislative Assembly, Karnataka. Seeing the progress at the GP, he introduced COMPUSOL to Udupi Block Administration and City Municipal Council. Consequently, among others, we implemented a Block Administration solution in Udupi, and GP solutions in Alevuru, Chikjala, and Kagwada in Karnataka.

Accountability and Clarity: Since citizen details are now part of the database, Bellandur citizens are aware of issues related to taxes calculation, procedure for water connectivity, payment of taxes, and other essential citizen duties and responsibilities.

Lessons

Reality underscores the fact that most ICT deployment efforts hit a roadblock somewhere. Notwithstanding our initial success with village level e-governance, we realized that having good intentions and enthusiasm is not enough!

During 2001, we started encountering various challenges on the road to e-governance. When it was not the changes in the political landscape, then it was the difficulty in sustaining interest in the solution.

At that point COMPUSOL had to take some hard decisions:
Should we maintain and support the Bellandur GP project for free?
How long would we be able to sustain it?

Some of these questions arose because there was no party that wanted to take initiative or ownership in maintaining the solution. The media, political parties, and NGOs had come in and poured lots of ink on Bellandur.

However, maintaining the solution, and attempting new technological modalities, well, requires significant resource investments.

It was then that we made the decision that we would still continue supporting Bellandur, even if it had to be done for no revenue. And we would not attempt to do it alone.

We wanted to challenge the notion that Private-Public Partnerships are *impossible* to sustain in India.

Sowing the seeds for the e-governance ecosystem:

Our initial inspiration came from the least expected of quarters: GP officials and the rural citizens! Since 1999 to 2001, the local citizens had benefited tremendously from the introduction of GP level e-governance.

They were upbeat about the potentiality that e-governance could bring to their part of the world, if additional services were added.

Based on these positive feeds, we started working towards the larger issues of sustenance and evolution of ICTs and e-governance.

The more we searched, the more we found dedicated people and organizations that wanted to achieve the same goals, and were talking about the same challenges, albeit in a different language. NGO-speak, Government-speak, Community-speak, metaphorically at least!

In other words, we realized the urgent need to self-start and initiate multi level dialogue with other stakeholders on transactions, ideas, and practices towards this common goal.
It is here that the concept of an emergent e-governance ecosystem was born.

Since the beginning of 2003, we have now engaged stakeholders,
including Contextual Research institutions, Self Help Groups, and NGOs to develop these ecosystems.

These other stakeholders sustain e-governance at several levels of abstraction: They make human systems “e-ready”, seed ideas for new socio/technological approaches, serve to avoid social disruption through ICT.

(A concept paper on the emergent ecosystem is hosted at:
http://www.compusolsoftware.com/iceg-2003-asp-egovcomplexsystem.pdf)

Development Impacts

Project potential:

Several “press-savvy” e-governance pilot projects in India have failed to sustain interest, revenue, or community participation.

In contrast, Bellandur stands out as an optimistic test-bed site, engaging ecosystem stakeholders in meaningful transactions, so that the entire system within rural India transforms itself through ICTs.

We have mentioned earlier the quantitative and qualitative benefits that accrued to Bellandur through the GP e-governance solution. What we consider even more interesting is the range of possibilities that a phased ecosystem approach can bring for Bellandur and other Gram Panchayats.

We started the drill of identifying partners and fostering the ecosystem ourselves, because we believe such informed action is better than technological presumptuousness.

There can be no single stakeholder in e-governance and other ICT enabled scenarios. The topic is far too complex and the stakes are too high for it to be handed over to a single stakeholder, whether it be Government or an NGO or a private party. Unfortunately, in India it has been the rule rather than the exception!

Bellandur demonstrates the potential for a multi-party, multi-sectoral approach that engages and involves all parties, Government, vendors, the local community, capacity building organizations, empowered individuals, and other cultural and social groups, that have a role to play in successful ICT enabled e-governance.

It also indicates that before ANY further outlays are allocated for ICT systems, the policy planners should take a long and hard look at the entire ecosystem, through such holistic mapping *before* they design the initial system and start rolling it out. We run the risk of having at best time bound success stories, and at worst, systemic disruptions unless we "listen" to the ecosystem, and make sure all linkages and nodes of this emerging network are taken into consideration.

Today, we continue walking on the path to e-governance all over India, with cautious hope and the belief that such emergent ecosystems can truly sustain the genuinely transformational potential of ICT.

Project Information

Organisation : COMPUSOL Software
URL : http://www.compusolsoftware.com
Total budget in US$ : zero
Country of activity: India [IN]

Are there any partners involved : Bellandur Gram Panchayat
Microsoft
What is partners role?: The Gram Panchayat officials supported the implementation of e-governance and assisted us with initial requirements gathering.
Microsoft provided software to the Gram Panchayat for free.
We are currently in discussions to finalize partners in our Bellandur e-governance ecosystem.

Contact Information

Amit Pande, http://www.me.umn.edu/~amit
amit@compusolsoftware.com, amit@me.umn.edu
COMPUSOL Software, 79 DVG Road, Basavangudi, 560004, Bangalore, +91-9844104155

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