| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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Work on the initiative began in January 2011. In March 2011, a draft consultation paper on mobile governance was circulated for public feedback. As part of the project, the Mobile Service Delivery Gateway (MSDG) was launched in July 2011 with the SMS gateway being made operational. A mobile applications store (m-AppStore) was made operational in January 2012. After extensive consultations with stakeholders across government, industry and civil society, the Framework for Mobile Governance was notified in February 2012. Since then, the initiative has been expanded tremendously to include additional mobile channels, such as IVRS and USSD, and mobile payments. As on 28th December 2013, there are over 840 government departments and agencies across the nation that are using Mobile Seva for delivering their services to citizens and businesses and over 2.5 million transactions are being delivered everyday through this platform. In addition, over 240 mobile apps have been developed and made available to citizens for a range of public services. These apps have been downloaded over 122,000 times.
The main elements of the action plan that was developed to implement the strategy were as follows:
i. Bringing all Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) on board:
a. “A single national short code”: Direct engagement with all TSPs & Department of Telecom (DoT) resulted in opening of the short code 51969 by all TSPs during 2011 and 2012 and short code 166 by the major TSPs during 2012 and 2013 across the nation.
b. “Best rates for sending Push SMSes to citizens”: Intensive consultations with all TSPs resulted in a very cost-effective solution for sending Push SMSes as the rates obtained are amongst the lowest in the country.
ii. Integrating government departments with Mobile Seva: An extensive awareness and communication drive was launched to convey the unique value proposition and the benefits of the platform as a one-stop gateway for all mobile enablement needs. This is an ongoing activity from the beginning.
iii. Designed for whole-of-government: Any government department/agency at central, state, or local levels can onboard immediately through an online self-service mode. It need not create its own mobile platform.
iv. Innovative approach to capacity building: Another strategy was to provide complete handholding support to all government departments and involve their own technical teams, wherever available, in integration and developing the applications. If the department did not have any technical capability, then complete support including regular support for operation and maintenance was provided. The project team provides complete handholding and full 24x7 support to all departments on an ongoing basis.
v. Complete transparency in providing information and access: Complete transparency was ensured in providing information and access to all services to all stakeholders. All project related information as well as usage statistics for all departments and services have been made available in real time in public domain on the Mobile Seva portal.
vi. Emphasis on mobile applications: Mobile Applications are fast becoming the preferred mode for accessing mobile services and, in cognizance of this trend, Mobile Seva created a mobile application store. It currently hosts over 240 live and fully integrated mobile apps.
vii. Involving private application developers: DeitY organized a contest in March 2013 to involve the private developers in developing mobile applications. It has generated excellent response from the private developer community in the country.
viii. Use of social media to create awareness: An important strategy has been to engage with the stakeholders directly through social media sites like Facebook (www.facebook.com/DIT.MGOV) and Twitter (@mgovindia) to obtain feedback and create awareness. This has been done throughout the project, from consultations during the policy formulation stage to the present phase of implementation.
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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The organizations that contributed to the initiative are:
i. Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Govt. of India: Conceptualized, owned, funded, supervised and monitored the entire initiative.
ii. Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC): Implemented the initiative.
iii. National e-Governance Division (NeGD): Provided consulting support.
Both C-DAC and NeGD are organizations under DeitY.
From DeitY, the core team members involved in the initiative were as follows:
i. Project leader: Dr. Rajendra Kumar, IAS (Indian Administrative Service), Joint Secretary, DeitY (E-mail: rajendra.ias@gov.in, Mobile: +91-9868162277, CV/Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rajendrakumar): Provided overall leadership and led the conceptualization, drafting of the policy framework, design and implementation of the entire initiative from the beginning.
ii. Project officer: Ms. Kavita Bhatia, Additional Director, DeitY (E-mail: kbhatia@gov.in, Mobile: +91-9818193281, CV/Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/kavita-bhatia/23/a8b/7b0 ): Involved in the implementation of the initiative from the beginning.
From C-DAC, the core team members involved in technical development of the platform and its implementation were as follows:
i. Principal Investigator: Dr. Zia Saquib, Executive Director, CDAC Mumbai (E-mail: saquib@cdac.in, Mobile: +91-9821433364, CV/Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/zia-saquib/3/140/946 ): Led the technical design and implementation of the mobile platform.
ii. Technical Team Leaders:
a) Mr. Kapil Kant Kamal, Senior Technical Officer, CDAC Mumbai (E-mail: kapil@cdac.in, Mobile: +91-9833237956, CV/Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/kapil-kant-kamal/44/51b/450 ): Involved in technical design and implementation.
b) Mr. Manish Kumar, Senior Technical Officer, CDAC Mumbai (E-mail: kmanish@cdac.in, Mobile: +91-9870462992, CV/Profile:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/manish-kumar/77/549/946 ): Involved in technical design and implementation.
From NeGD, the core team members involved in conceptualization, drafting of the policy framework, conducting the consultation with all the stakeholders, negotiations with telecom service providers, and project management support were as follows:
i. Dr. Rajendra Kumar, IAS, mentioned above, while working as Director, NeGD during Aug. 2010 till April 2012.
ii. Project Consultant: Mr. Deepinder Singh, GM (Senior Consultant), National e-Governance Division (NeGD) (E-mail: deepinder@negp.gov.in, +91-9811210290, CV/Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/deepinder-singh/1/b58/999).
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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This initiative has been conceptualized, owned, led and fully funded by DeitY, Government of India. The human resources came from the government organizations involved in the design and implementation of the initiative, i.e. DeitY (owner department), C-DAC (implementing agency) and NeGD (consultancy and project management support) and their costing has not been taken into account.
The first phase of the project, launched in July 2011, was focused on developing the initial platform for a period of 12 months at an outlay of INR ₹ 18 million (approx. US$ 360,000). This was conceptualized and funded by DeitY and implemented by C-DAC. In view of the success of the initiative and also in light of the growing demand from departments and agencies across the nation for such a whole-of-government, centralized, cloud-based and easy-to-board platform, DeitY felt the need to scale up the infrastructure and provide a nationwide rollout of the project. The ‘National Rollout for Mobile Services Delivery Gateway’ project was conceptualized and funded by DeitY at an estimated cost of INR ₹215 million (approx. US$ 3.5 million) and implemented by C-DAC. As a part of this project, the Mobile Seva platform has been scaled up to meet the demand for such an integrated platform at the national level. At present, the Push SMS services and mobile app development and hosting are being done free of cost for government departments and agencies across the nation. For Pull SMSs, citizens pay normal charges to the telecom service providers. To make the project financially sustainable beyond the current project period in the long run, an appropriate revenue model is being evolved based on the platform’s service offerings and capabilities and shall be put in place before the end of the current project funding in 2016.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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Five most successful outputs that contributed to the success of the initiative are as follows:
i. Huge growth in the no. of departments/agencies onboard: Within a span of just over two years, the number of government departments/agencies in the country using Mobile Seva has crossed 840. The departments cover the central government, all the 35 states and Union Territories (UTs), and a large number of local government bodies such as municipalities, districts, blocks, etc. in the country.
ii. Exponential growth in the number of transactions and live mobile apps: During the same period, the cumulative number of Push SMS transactions through Mobile Seva has crossed 565 million with over 2.5 million transactions per day. The cumulative number of Pull SMS transactions has crossed 1.5 million. The number of live mobile apps has crossed over 240 with over 122,000 downloads by citizens.
iii. Centralized and cloud based infrastructure: A centralized and cloud based infrastructure for the initiative has been created and made operational by DeitY. As the entire infrastructure is cloud based with a very simple onboarding mechanism, departments and agencies need not create their own infrastructure. This has saved substantial costs, time and effort on their part. Mobile based services and integration with cloud based infrastructure has also encouraged the departments to conduct significant business process reengineering (BPR) of their existing processes to take maximum advantage of the new platform. This has helped them in simplifying their procedures, introducing greater transparency, and improving the citizen interface significantly.
iv. Connectivity with Telecom Service Providers (TSPs): The initiative has taken on board all the 13 TSPs in the country for providing mobile based services. This has helped in expanding the reach and access to mobile based public services tremendously in the country, especially in the rural areas where access to computers and internet is very low.
v. Dedicated Project Team: A dedicated project team consisting of 20 technical professionals has been put in place at C-DAC, the implementing agency, for spearheading the technical development work and provide complete handholding support to all the government departments and agencies. This team has been instrumental in helping over 840 departments and agencies in the country to onboard the mobile platform and start providing mobile based services. Under the overall leadership of DeitY, this has also helped in capacity building of the onboarding departments and agencies for mobile governance.
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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Project management principles blended with best practices of operating in a government environment were applied with excellent results.
Within the team, regular and recorded meetings under the leadership of the project leader at DeitY were held amongst the owning, implementing and consulting support organizations (DeitY, CDAC and NeGD respectively) in a fully participative environment with focus on consensus building on priority items and strategic directions towards desired outcomes, and also for monitoring and review of the implementation of the project. Clearly defined milestones and deliverables were set with defined timelines for implementation.
To monitor progress from the users’ standpoint, open communication channel was maintained with all the 840+ integrated central, state, and local government departments across the country through both electronic and traditional modes. Regular meetings and conferences were held with the central, state and local government departments to monitor the progress of implementation and solicit their feedback and comments on further improvements to the platform. DeitY conducts quarterly review meetings with all state/UT IT secretaries on the implementation of e-governance projects where implementation of this initiative in the respective states/UTs was reviewed specifically.
In addition, regular posts were made through social media sites – Facebook and Twitter – and citizen feedback was solicited and addressed totally transparently through the same platform. Real-time usage statistics of the Mobile Seva platform in terms of no. of departments on board, no. of public services integrated, no. of mobile apps developed and hosted, no. of SMSes sent and received by the integrating departments, etc. are available round-the-clock in a user-friendly and transparent manner on the Mobile Seva portal at www.mgov.gov.in. This helped the project in terms of external stakeholder feedback and monitoring.
Another important and critical part of the Mobile Seva platform is an active “assessment and correction” module, under which, an independent mid-term impact assessment exercise was undertaken in June 2013 through the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS), Mumbai. The report is based on a survey of 60 departments that have integrated their services with Mobile Seva. It is available online at www.mgov.gov.in and the key findings (mentioned elsewhere in this form) indicate that the integrated departments are highly satisfied with the platform, are likely to continue with it, and are also likely to advocate it.
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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(a) Forging a consensus for formulation of a policy framework for mobile governance was a major challenge as all the relevant stakeholders had to be consulted and brought on board. DeitY notified the Framework for Mobile Governance in February 2012 after extensive consultations with all the stakeholders. It now acts as the prime driver for a whole-of-government approach towards mobile enablement. The challenge of forging a common understanding and consensus among stakeholders was overcome by conducting the consultation process totally transparently and laying out the objectives of the initiative and strategies for implementation clearly.
(b) Bringing all the TSPs onboard was another major challenge in ensuring that citizens in any part of the country could access mobile-based services. Direct engagement with all TSPs and the Department of Telecom (DoT) were undertaken to address this.
(c) Convincing government departments across the country to expeditiously integrate with Mobile Seva was another major challenge. An extensive awareness drive was launched to convey the unique value proposition and benefits of the platform as a one stop gateway for mobile enablement. This has resulted in adoption of the Mobile Seva platform by over 840 departments across the country already.
(d) Capacity building of the departments/agencies for mobile enablement was a major challenge as most of the departments lack capacity for readily using the mobile platform. This was overcome by providing complete handholding support to them in the beginning. If the department did not have any technical capability, then complete support including regular support for operation and maintenance was provided by DeitY through its team from C-DAC.
(e) Quick onboarding of departments was another challenge. This was addressed by enabling a simple online registration process. This has enabled such a large number of departments to onboard within a span of just over two years.
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