Date:20/06/2006 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2006/06/20/stories/2006062003620400.htm

Back Outside expertise for e-Governance projects

Moumita Bakshi Chatterjee

Govt readies plans for contract hiring for project execution

The attempt is to attract professionals who have skills in project management, change management, process re-engineering, financial structuring, and structuring Public Private Partnerships.

New Delhi , June 19

The race to grab highly skilled manpower for large IT projects is moving beyond the realm of private sector companies. With the National e-Governance Plan set to take off in full steam, the Government is readying a capacity building plan that seeks to draw upon external expertise by taking on a "contract basis" about 500 professionals with project management and process re-engineering skills to assist various agencies in implementing e-governance projects.

"At this point of time the States and the various Ministries and Departments in general may not have all the skill-sets required to implement the e- Governance projects. While so far NIC has played a crucial role in technological support, but with NeGP, the focus will be on service to citizens which entails process re-engineering, plan for transition, training and overcoming organisational issues," Government sources said here.

To meet this requirement, the Government plans to draw upon the expertise of not only the existing Government officials but also professionals from outside who can be hired on a contract basis for a three-year duration. "The attempt is to attract professionals who have skills such as project management, change management, process re-engineering, financial structuring, skills in structuring Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). They, along with Government representatives who have domain expertise and technical expertise, will form multi-disciplinary teams which may be as small as six people, or as large as 20-30 people depending on the size of the individual projects," sources added.

In the run-up to such capacity-building measures, individual States have already firmed up their proposals based on administrative and operational guidelines issued in April 2005. The overall scheme for capacity building is likely to be finalised and placed before the cabinet in the next 3-4 months.

"Given the scale of the project and the fact that the pool of such professionals is limited, the efforts of various State and Central Government agencies would have to be co-ordinated to ensure that various entities do not compete for the same resource," sources said. The entire effort of recruitment will be spearheaded by IT Ministry in discussion with the States.

At present, National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) covers 26 Mission Mode Project (MMP) and eight support components to be implemented at the Central, State and local government levels, and a new project called `e-district' is also likely to be added to this list shortly. The MMPs under Central Government category include Income Tax, Passport and Visa, MCA 21, Insurance, Central Excise, National ID, Pensions, Banking and e-Post, while those under states are Land Records, Road Transport, Agriculture, Treasuries, Municipalities, Gram Panchayats, Commercial Taxes, Police, and Employment Exchanges.