India is transforming into a ‘digital’ economy at a rapid rate with the government’s ‘Digital India’ initiative. DeitY has also undertaken an initiative - Digitize India Platform (DIP) aimed at large scale digitization of records in the country. With emphasis right from the top and a structured approach to digitally empower each and every citizen of the country, digitization is touching all aspects of our lives - across governance, utility services, transportation, education, healthcare and banking.
While it is an ambitious dream, the Indian government currently still resides in the ‘tech-trap’ like any other organization, aiming to promote a new technology adoption while still being confined to the age old legacy processes. Around half of all government processes are paper-driven. In fact, the public sector is responsible for more paper than any industry in the world. The impact of that is huge.
When processes are paper-based, processing and securely routing information is extremely difficult – not to mention the high susceptibility to human error. Adding to the constant budget scrutiny, keeping information secure and private is an eminent challenge.
It can be easily surmised that outdated paper-based processes are complicating the government’s ability to deliver services in the ways the citizens of today expect. Not surprisingly, in 2015 the number of unmet requests hit an all-time high of 129,825 in the U.S. alone – setting a shockingly high bar for India. In fact, during 2014-15, there was a 22% increase in RTI application requests received by the Government of India.
The inefficient state of most paper-based government processes are unable to keep pace with today’s demands. IT enablement alone cannot bring in dramatic improvements in government functioning. Most of the processes were defined long back (in many cases, in pre-independence era) with the scenario at that time as the backdrop. Today’s citizens expect convenient, easy and innovative ways to interact with the government to get the services they need.
These demands, are rapidly shaping new forms of government, namely, egovernment (e-gov). E-gov is defined as the use of technology, particularly the Internet, as a means to deliver services to citizens, businesses, and other entities. Operational benefits from the introduction of internet-based e-commerce, for government and public sector companies, include the reduction in paperwork, the provision of continuous service availability to customers, a reduction in response time and in error rate. All of these factors contribute to the general increase in the efficiency of government business.
Though e-gov has clear benefits for businesses and government themselves, citizens actually receive the widest array of benefits from e-gov. For the citizens, e-gov can offer a huge range of information and services including information for research, government forms and services, public policy information, employment and business opportunities, voting information, tax filing, license registration or renewal, payment of fines, and submission of comments to government officials.
Transforming to e-gov framework requires digitizing government information as a first stage (citizen access layer), re-engineering, and deliver interactive services to citizens in second stage (e-gov layer). The third stage of e-gov is increasingly interaction, allowing governments to use IT tools to engage citizens in the development of policies, programs, and services (digital government layer). Meanwhile, reduction of redundant paper-based process and digitizing all records will enable efficient access and management by both employees and the general public. (Source)
By digitizing historical records and establishing an access on-line, can provide tremendous customer convenience as well as create crucial backup and disaster recovery copies for original and irreplaceable information. This not only improves the way records are stored but also provide a more cost-effective safeguard for future disasters. National Library (Kolkata) took step in the right direction in 2014 to digitize, archive and exchange surrogate copies of early Bengali printed material dating from 1778 till 1914 with the British Library.
Organizations across the world are working towards digitizing legacy processes for a more efficient business workflow.
Xerox Workflow Automation Solutions for the Public Sector is one such example of suite of services that can help government agencies manage documents and records in an entirely new way. From automated routing and digital repositories to integrating tablets and capturing analytics, allowing governments to make document processes fast and efficient.
Guest Author
Abhishek Sarda is the GM Marketing - Global Document Outsourcing at Xerox India. He is a seasoned business professional responsible for crafting and executing growth strategies for Services businesses. At Xerox India, he is responsible for marketing of Document Outsourcing Services portfolio of Xerox which enables Organizations digitally transform the way work gets done. The portfolio includes: Managed Print Services, Communications Services and Document Transaction Processing Service. He has over 13 years of experience in driving Managed Services business for Telecom and IT/ITeS organizations in various capacities.
