The Hindu : E-governance sans e-heart

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Aug 25, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala

E-governance sans e-heart

By K. M. Tampi

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM AUG. 24. The Government decision to go in for e-governance in a big way has been widely welcomed. But the general complaint is that the Government is doing it without paying any attention to the dictates of even the virtual heart leave alone that of the real one. While the virtual heart would want both the services rendered to the people by the Government and the imposts collected by it for them to be done in a business like manner, the real one may not mind some compromises in both as long as a humane element is involved. If the utter disregard for the improvement of the quality of services in the Government's e- governance programme has made the people compare it to a modern Shylock interested only in extracting its pound of flesh, they cannot be blamed for it.

E-governance, if the common man's understanding about it is correct, is the use of modern technology especially IT-enabled services, to improve the services of the Government in general. It means that the Government will have to reduce the number of black-outs and brown-outs in the area of electricity, do away with disruptions of water supply which have become a frequent phenomenon, provide quality medical services through Government hospitals and issue various certificates and documents required by the people without unnecessary delays and hassles to mention a few areas.

But the Government's concept of e-governance seems to be confined to collecting its dues promptly and without any delay and allowing the quality of services to remain in hell.

If you go the the Jana Sevana Kendra--Friends--opened by the Government to pay your electric bill, for instance, you may be able to remit the money and get the receipt in your hands within one or two minutes flat. But by that time, the power supply to your house may have got disrupted. Disruption takes place at least two or thee times on a daily basis even now. Fortunately, the response from the section office, if you contact it, is much more civilised now than in the past when it used to be outright abusive and boorish.

A senior citizen remembers with patches here and there the steps taken by the Electricity Department of the days of monarchy when it decided to go in for the commercial supply of electricity to the people with the commissioning of the Pallivasal hydel project. Well before the commissioning of the project, it had two giant generators installed in Thiruvananthapuram city to cater to the needs of the consumers if the supply of power from the project was affected due to some reason or other. The principle behind it was that once the department started the commercial supply of power, it should be able to do it without any interruption. The place where the generators were installed came to be known as the power house and was reportedly the headquarters of the Electricity Department and the Board which succeeded it for years. The road to it is still known as the Power House Road. That was how professionals used to handle such issues in the past. The rot set in later and it is yet to be stemmed.

The situation is no different in the case of water supply either. The old pipeline bringing water from Aruvikkara which is the first water supply project bursts frequently. The supply to vast areas of the city remains disrupted as the Authority takes its own sweet time in repairing the line and putting it back in action. Some parts of the city are facing water supply disruption even during the Onam season. Many houses had wells in the past. But old-timers say that the authorities had them filled by even resorting to threats of action in some cases saying that they were breeding grounds of mosquitoes. Now the very same authorities are encouraging the people to dig new wells by offering even subsidies to reduce the demand on the water supply system and overcome the vagaries of pipe bursts.

The upkeep of the roads is the main purpose for which the tax on motor vehicles is collected. But as in the case of the other taxes, this tax too is diverted for every purpose other than the repair and the maintenance of the roads. The miserable condition of the roads is not a new phenomenon but was there during the previous LDF Government's period and that of the UDF Government before that too. Jokes and stories about the condition of roads have been abounding in Kerala for years. They include one in which a youngster advises his friend who wants to get his wife's pregnancy aborted to take her in an autorickshaw along Drainage Road or Pipeline Road. The result is guaranteed. There is a tail piece to it. The youngster's parting shot to his friend is that if instead of doing so he took her to a hospital they might operate her for piles and leave the pregnancy untouched if it was a Government institution and give a bill for settling which he would have to sell his house if it was a private establishment.

When P.K.K.Bava of the Muslim League was the PWD Minister, the Opposition used to ridicule him by calling the ditches in the roads "Bava kulams'' (Bava's ponds). The UDF retaliated by naming them as "Hamza kundu'' (Hamza's pits) when T. K. Hamza took over the PWD during the LDF Government's period. The present PWD Minister, M. K. Muneer, is making a valiant effort to at least fill the holes on the roads. It is yet to be seen what he is going to do to roads which look like one huge hole. One does not know how the Opposition is going to describe the roads now. One suggestion is "Muneerinte malangal'' (Muneer's lairs).

Any report on road condition will be incomplete without mentioning the flooding of the hearts of Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi cities during every monsoon. Successive Governments have made pious announcements and let loose flurries of activities after every bout of flooding. But the phenomenon continues without any respite. When you are reading this, the flood waters are only still receding in Kochi. An indignant citizen put it rightly when he asked the other day as to why the Government cannot resort to some e-management of the flooding even as it is squeezed the people in the name of e-governance.

The less said about the other departments the better. There are people who think that even the Lord cannot bring order and end the corruption in the Motor Vehicles and Registration departments. And the village offices which are the lifeline of the common man. It is these offices where e-governnance should be implemented so that certificates can be issued by pressing a few keys on the keyboard instead of making the applicants play supplicantly with money in their hands to the deities inside them twice a day for a week or ten days.

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