The Hindu : Committee exploring prospects of e-governance

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 30, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu

Committee exploring prospects of e-governance

By R.K.Radhakrishnan

CHENNAI Dec. 29. Over the next few weeks, a government committee would make the most important decision, which will fundamentally affect the progress of broad basing governance and reaching out to the people through the Internet.

The `fundamental' question relates to the adoption of an operating system for powering the e-governance dream, which aims at making available a host of services at the click of a button — right from filing of property tax returns to lodging complaints with departments.

The system that propels the dream could either be an open source or a proprietary one. Costs and security weigh on any such system heavily, say experts who have worked with a few State Governments, IT consultants and software industry watchers.

According to them, the open source will take sometime to mature, but the costs of going in for a proprietary system could prove prohibitive in the long run for cash-strapped Governments, which would be forced to scale back e-governance targets or even abandon them altogether. Also, there is a need to closely scrutinise the security aspect. But so far, there has been an alarming lack of discussion on the subject, despite the prolific pace of computerisation here, they point out.

Proponents of the open system say the strength of the system lies in the fact that the operator is aware of the source code and can carry out modifications as required. In this sense, it is free. Also, it comes at a fraction of the price of proprietary software. Those supporting proprietary software say that open systems are yet to develop well enough to be reliable.

According to Ashok Jhunjhunwala, IIT professor, who built Telecommunication and Computer Networks and developed the astonishingly cheaper corDECT wireless in local loop, and who is on the board of Polaris, a Chennai-based software giant, it is advisable to use open systems as far as possible. Initially, it is necessary to employ proprietary software also, even if as only a temporary measure. "But there is no way the country could afford to computerise with proprietary software.''

"The matter of adoption of an operating system either on an open source basis or on a proprietary source basis appropriate for the Government of Tamil Nadu for its offices and other applications was discussed at length with the Development Commissioner/Secretary - Finance, Secretary - Information Technology and the Managing Director, Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu,'' says a Government Order (dated November 27 2002).

"It was felt that the issue should be examined by the constitution of a committee of experts which would examine the advantages and disadvantages of either operating system.''

The ELCOT MD suggested constitution of an expert committee, which was done with the Anna University (AU) Vice-Chancellor, E.Balagurusamy, as chairman and with Hans Raj Verma (MD, ELCOT - Member secretary); A.Mohan, deputy director-general, National Informatics Centre, Chennai; S.Raman, Head, IIT-Madras Computer Sciences department and Murali Meenakshi, senior consultant, AU KBC Research Centre, AU, as members. The committee has been given six weeks to submit its report.

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