IT MANAGERS WILL DELIBERATE ON - CHAMPIONING CHANGE MANAGEMENT
A two-day Conference
of IT Managers is being held here from tomorrow, the 25th
June, 2003. The theme of discussion will be "Championing
Change Management" – Creating Ownerships.
The issue of
governance has in the recent times emerged at the forefront of
the development agenda. The universally accepted features of good
governance are the exercise of legitimate political power; and
formulation and implementation of policies and programmes that
are equitable, transparent, non-discriminatory, socially sensitive,
participatory, and above all accountable to people at large.
Electronic-governance
(E-governance) is fast emerging as an important tool for achieving
good governance especially with regard to improving efficiency,
transparency and making the interface with government user friendly.
E.-Government denotes the application of ICT (Information and
Communication Technologies) to the processes of government functioning
in order to bring about better governance. This has often been
termed as SMART (Simple, moral, Accountable, Responsive and Transparent)
Government.
So far the emphasis
has been largely on providing computers, connectivity, networking,
training, technology up-gradation, selective delivery systems
for information and services and a package of software solutions,
mostly utilizing Government technical and financial resources.
Increasingly the world over today, the emphasis has shifted to
providing services to citizens (including businesses) using these
technologies and by leveraging the advent of the Internet. Another
major trend worldwide is the use of public private partnerships
to deliver government services to citizens and businesses.
The framework
for policy decisions and initiatives in the area of e-Governance
and use of IT in Central Government Ministries and Departments
has now been established over the last few years. In accordance
with the decision taken by the High Powered Committee constituted
under the Chairmanship of the Cabinet Secretary in February 2000,
senior officers of the level of Joint Secretaries have been designated
as IT Managers to provide leadership for various e-Governance
initiatives and function as champions for governance reforms and
for introduction, promotion and sustenance of various initiatives
in e-Governance.
Another significant
development to promote and facilitate implementation of various
e-Governance initiatives is the setting up of the National Institute
of Smart Government (NISG) on the basis of the recommendations
made by the National Task Force on Information Technology and
Software Development constituted by the Government in May 1998.
NISG was conceived to offer high end, neutral consultancy for
structuring and implementing e-governance projects that involve
private sector resources and competencies in addition to Government’s
own resources and to handhold the entire process of project development,
implementation and monitoring.
One of the mandates
of Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances
is to document and disseminate the best practices in good governance.
The Department of AR&PG in collaboration with Prasar Bharti
has developed a special documentary series entitled "Information
Technology in the service of the People" which is expected
to be telecast from July, 2003.
The role of IT
Managers is of immense significance, as the spearheading of major
IT related initiatives within the Ministry and Department is his
responsibility. His leadership would be the prime motivating factor
in prioritizing and accelerating the implementation of Minimum
Agenda of e-Governance with the department and Ministry, re-engineering
various processes, simplifying procedures, standardizing government
practices, setting up required infrastructure, directing the design
and development of requisite software and providing better and
value added services to the clients and stakeholders. Major focus
in all these efforts that would be undertaken by IT Managers would,
however, be based on "Good Governance, principles and practices".
To this end, the backend processes would have to be analysed threadbare,
based on mature comprehension of the workflows, entity relationships,
event management, check point for monitoring and control and so
on.
Conferences of
this kind would facilitate exchange of knowledge and experience,
enable identification of and focus on key issues, address problem
areas, firm up strategies and approaches for various initiatives
for e-Governance in the Central Government.
