BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AND E-GOVERNANCE
Analytics & Modelling Division
National Informatic Centre
Department of Information Technology
Ministry of Communication & IT
New Delhi - 110003
Index
1. Introduction
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2. E-governance
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3. E-Governance Components
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4. E-Gov Services
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5. Business Intelligence
13
6. Infrastructure at NIC
18
7. System Management
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8. Conclusion
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1.
Introduction
The advent of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the recent years has
present an opportunity for the IT managers and the senior officials in the government to
change the way organizations leverage and value their information assets. With the
ability to easy access of information mission delivery, resource management and data
dissemination can be raised to levels which were previously not at all possible. In
contrasts to the private industrial and business/government organizations are measured
not by profits and losses, but by their ability to deliver upon their mission. Regardless of
this mission, the ability to understand the citizen and the ability to use the resources are
the key factors in matching services to citizen needs.
At times, government departments might have come across shortages or resources in one
department and excess of resources in the other. This could be due to non-availability of
proper data and facilities to disseminate information. Even if government departments are
computerized and networked more for the purpose of Internet usage and mail transfer, the
information available in one department, which possess the data could not be utilized in
other department. This is because the information is stored in different formats, in
different platforms and in heterogeneous different data base systems.
By deploying the latest ICT the government departments can not only maximize access to
information, but also can bid farewell to the massive paper trail often associated with
various government agencies. Rather than providing non-detailed information to
uninterested constituents, the departments can now direct the right information to the
right people at the right time. Further, the enterprise-wide information can be an asset to
the government as well as to the entire population. This will help the departments in
detailed micro level analysis and decision-making.
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2.
E-governance
2.1 What is E-governance?
E-governance is to governance processes in which Information and Communications
Technology (ICT) play an active and significant role.
2.2 Definition of e-Governance
E-governance is the application of information & communication technologies to
transform the efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability of informational
& transactional exchanges with in government, between governments, agencies of
National, State, Municipal & Local levels, citizen & businesses, and to empower citizens
through access & use of information.
2.3 Objective of E-governance
E-Governance solutions are oriented towards helping government organizations
transform into enterprise infrastructure-based end-to-end digital governments that
# Build services around citizen's choice
# Make government more accessible
# Facilitate social inclusion
# Provide information responsibly
# Use government resources effectively
# Reduce government spending
# Deliver online services
# Involve citizens in the governing process
2.4 Why E-governance?
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To improve quality of governance products and services being currently provided
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To provide new governance products and services
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To enhance participation of people in choice & provision of governance products
& services
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To bring new sections of society under the governance sphere (including those
who are most likeable to remain excluded - namely the poor, the illiterate, the
differently abled, indigenous people, the migrants and displaced people)
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2.5 Participatory System
A country is made up of government and people. People are made up of communities. A
good E-governance model provides a platform where various communities and special
interest groups represent themselves. It provides an easy way for individuals to find the
groups and communities of interest to them. It links people and organizations with each
other. It builds an environment with specialized expertise that can help answer questions,
and guide them to find solutions. This is called community management system of Egovernance.
Figure 1: A model Of E-governance
E-governance is a transition process from conventional to people-oriented proactive
electronic system. This is a big change in the mindset of people. Putting it in a positive
way, it is not a change but a transition. It may not be achievable unless it slowly evolves
among the people. All communities of people should be attracted towards the system. To
accept this transition process, the communities need to be trained and educated. The
electronic media should be user friendly and accessible by different communities
including the disabled and the under-privileged. This is called transition management
system of E-governance.
Knowledge management is the management of information, skill, experience, innovation,
and intelligence. The knowledge management is the one, which is ultimately going to
plan and implement various government schemes and projects.
The complete system is depicted in Figure 1.
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2.6 E-governance Readiness
The concept of e-governance has its origins in India during the seventies with a focus on
development of in- house government applications in the areas of defense, economic
monitoring, planning and the deployment of IT to manage data intensive functions related
to elections, census, tax administration, passport etc. A major step in this direction is that,
National Informatics Center (NIC) has established a nation-wide communication network
to connect all the state capitals, district headquarters and the central government
departments in the eighties itself and significant development had taken place in both
communication and automation in various ministries, departments, states and districts.
From the early nineties, IT technologies were supplemented by ICT technologies to
extend its use for wider sectoral applications with policy emphasis on reaching out to
rural areas and taking in greater inputs from NGOs and private sector as well. There has
been an increasing involvement of international agencies under the framework of egovernance for development to catalyze the development of e-governance laws and
technologies in developing countries.
While the emphasis has been primarily on automation and computerization, state
governments have also endeavored to use ICT tools into connectivity, networking, setting
up systems for processing information and delivering services. At a micro level, this has
ranged from setting up of statewide area communication network, IT automation in
individual departments, electronic file handling and workflow systems, access to
entitlements, public grievance systems, service delivery for high volume routine
transactions such as payment of bills, tax dues to meeting poverty alleviation goals
through the promotion of entrepreneurial models and provision of market information.
The thrust has varied across initiatives, with some focusing on enabling the citizen-state
interface for various government services, and others focusing on bettering livelihoods.
2.7 Advantages of E-governance
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Integration of various ministries and departments for Effective Perspective
Planning and Evaluation by all government Ministries and Departments. Instead
of planning in isolation, integrated planning will have a greater ramification.
Otherwise ministries have to write to different agencies to get the necessary
information then compile it for its planning and decision making exercise which
naturally tends to take lot of time.
Documentation, monitoring and control of various projects in social and
economic sectors. Projects which are having influences in multiple departments
/ministries and/or implemented in multi-locations can easily be monitored and
control measures can be taken based on detailed level analysis.
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Geographic Information System based system for better understanding
Utilities Management
Crime Control and management: The trouble spots can easily be identified with
the help of crime related data and GIS. Based on the outcome security forces can
be deputed to the vulnerable locations
Poverty Alleviation –Identification of below poverty group, combining
this with food for work and other job generation projects.
Welfare Projects –the beneficiaries can be easily identified and efforts can
easily be made for the benefits to reach the needy ones and also with in the
scheduled timeframe.
Revenue Generation by elimination of tax evasions –discrepancies can
easily be identified and potential areas for more revenue generation can be
analyzed on a timely basis.
Corruption free Society
Corruption free Utilities Management in all development areas –identifies
the possible areas where corruption might takes place; close all the
loopholes.
Authentic & verified particulars
Population Growth
Birth Death monitoring and control
Multipurpose citizen identification system. Instead of having a number of
cards for driving license, voter identification and to avail various
government facilities, a single multipurpose card will eliminate lot of
unnecessary data entry, maintenance etc.
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3. E-governance Components
Governments are increasingly looking to cut down on operating costs and improve
delivery of services to citizens and employees. The focus is slowly shifting towards
giving self-service process improvements through online web based applications. The
three main target groups that can be distinguished in e-governance concepts are
government, citizens and businesses/interest groups. The external strategic objectives
focus on citizens and businesses and interest groups, the internal objectives focus on
government itself.
The major components involved in E-governance are
i.
Government to Government (G2G)
ii.
Government to Citizens (G2C)
iii.
Government to Business (G2B)
iv.
Citizen to Government (C2G).
3.1 Government to Government (G2G)
All the G2G interactions and dealings are required for planning, decision support and
implementation of its action plans. The goal of the Government-to-Government (G2G)
system is to forge new partnerships among various levels of government. These
partnerships facilitate collaboration between levels of government, and empower state
and local governments to deliver citizen services more effectively. The time gap can be
greatly reduced once the E-governance system is in place.
It requires a single interface to government offices and staff, to effectively carry out
functions like human resource management and financial resource planning in an
integrated environment. Further, all government agencies to be linked through a modern
computerized network that allows secure communications and interaction. Existing
government systems are either replaced or integrated into the new technology, depending
on the functionality and adaptability of legacy systems.
3.2 Government to Citizen (G2C)
It is basically serving the customers on the Web. The customers need not to visit, each
time, the government departments with Xerox copies of documents. The documents
submitted at any of the facility center is made available across the departments so that
carrying of volumes of documents and feeding them into computers is totally eliminated
or minimized to a maximum extent. Each citizen will have a unique identification number
and all the facilities and services rendered to a particular citizen can be tracked easily.
Once implemented, this will drastically reduce the workload of the government
departments. For example, as the government units are functioning in silos, it requires
issuing various certificates to the general public for availing some facilities. Instead if
common general-purpose citizen identification is given to each citizen, there won’t be
any further need for issuing the same set of certificates again and again. The concerned
departments can verify the details from the central database.
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3.3 Citizen to Government (C2G) is the online relationship between the citizen and all
of the various government departments one would like to interact to so that the citizen
gets some services without actually physically visiting the various government offices.
The role of C2G is to introduce the citizen to websites that one will find the most useful,
in daily life and times of need. This is an application to make public-to-government
transactions more efficient, effective and productive, while enhancing the quality of
services, by facilitating public transactions with government using various electronic
channels. The association between citizens and the government as a grievance redresser
in an online environment can easily be leveraged to provide many more services to
citizens from different providers.
3.4 Government to Business (G2B) and Business to Government (B2G)
In order to implement the government’s various plans and projects it needs the business
communities’ services. Services like e-procurement, e-payment, and project monitoring
and implementation forms part of this model. E-Procurement is an application to
transform the existing manual system of government procurement into an efficient
electronic based one.
3.5 Gartner, an international e-business research consultancy firm, has formulated a
four-phase E-governance model. This e-governance model can serve as a reference for
governments to position where a project fits in the overall evolution of an e-governance
strategy. In most cases, governments start with the delivery of online information, but
soon public demand and internal efficiency ask for more complex services. Of course this
change will take effect gradually, some services will be online earlier than other services.
In some cases the public demand is the driving force, in other cases cost saving aspects
for the government are leading. According to Gartner, e-governance will mature
according to the four-phase e-governance maturity model.
E-Governance Maturity Model (Gartner)
Early 90’s
Information
Mid 90’s
Interaction
Present
Transaction
Future
Transformation
 Presence
 Intake process
 Complete transaction
 Integration and organizational changes
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In each of the four phases, the delivery of online services and use of ICTs in government
operations serve one or more of the aspects of e-governance: democracy, government,
business.
The model does not mean that all institutions have to go through all phases and all at the same
time.
In the first phase e-governance means being present on the web, providing the external
public (G2C and G2B) with relevant information.
In the second phase the interaction between government and the public (G2C and G2B) is
stimulated with various applications. People can ask questions via e-mail use search
engines for information and are able to download all sorts of forms and documents. These
functionalities save time.
With phase three the complexity of the technology is increasing, but customer (G2C and
G2B) value will also be higher. Complete transactions can be done without going to an
office.
The fourth phase is the transformation phase in which all information systems are
integrated and the public can get G2C and G2B services at one (virtual) counter. One
single point of contact for all services is the ultimate goal.
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4. E-governance Services
4.1 E-Governance Projects in India
The state governments have already taken some initiative to form an IT task force to
outline IT policy document for the states and the citizen charters have started appearing
on govt. websites. For governments, the more overt motivation to shift from manual
processes to IT-enabled processes may be increased efficiency in administration and
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service delivery, but this shift can be conceived as a worthwhile investment with potential
for returns.
At the central government level the important e-governance projects being executed
includes Fertnet, Dacnet, Passport System, Company Registration System, Community
Information Centre projects in the northeastern states, etc.
In addition to the normal computerization of various activities the ministries and
departments, the following are some of the recent e-governance projects implemented by
various state governments.
Some E-governance Initiatives
State/Union Territory
Initiatives covering departmental automation, user
charge collection, delivery of policy/programme
information and delivery of entitlements
E-Seva, CARD, VOICE, MPHS, FAST, e-Cops, AP
Andhra Pradesh
online—One-stop-shop on the Internet, Saukaryam, Online
Transaction processing
Sales Tax Administration Management Information
Bihar
Chhattisgarh InfoTech Promotion Society, Treasury office,
Chattisgarh
e-linking project
e-Kosh –Online system of Treasuries and Pensions
Automatic Vehicle Tracking System, Computerization of
Delhi
website of RCS office, Electronic Clearance System,
Management Information System for Education, Online
public grievances system etc
Dharani Project
Goa
Mahiti Shakti, request for Government documents online,
Gujarat
Formbook online, G R book online, census online, tender
notice.
Nai Disha
Haryana
Lok Mitra
Himachal Pradesh
Bhoomi, Khajane, Kaveri
Karnataka
E-Srinkhala, RDNet, Fast, Reliable, Instant, Efficient
Kerala
Network for the Disbursement of Services (FRIENDS)
Gyandoot, Gram Sampark, Smart Card in Transport
Madhya Pradesh
Department, Computerization MP State Agricultural
Marketing Board (Mandi Board) etc
SETU, Online Complaint Management System—Mumbai
Maharashtra
Jan Mitra, RajSWIFT, Lokmitra, RajNIDHI
Rajasthan
Rasi Maiyams–Kanchipuram; Application forms related to
Tamil Nadu
public utility, tender notices and display
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Uttar Pradesh
West Bengal
North-Eastern States
Arunachal
Pradesh,
Manipur,
Meghalaya,
Mizoram & Nagaland
Tripura
NISANI-A
multipurpose
National
Identity
System/Mirzapur, UP.
BhuLekh –Land Records Computerization
Matir Katha –An Agri portal of the government
card
Community Information Center. Forms available on The
website under schemes related to Social welfare, food civil
supplies and consumer affairs, housing transport etc.
e-Suvidha
4.2 What to do with the historic data?
The availability of the basic data right from the point of generation to meet the
information needs at all level for all the time is still a problem in most of the departments.
Though the development of computer technologies like Internet and Intranet has further
enhanced the utility of these databases as the main supportive system for planning and
decision-making, there is still a vacuum in the analysis based decision systems. The
growth of information technology and its adaptation over the years has been exponential,
while at the same time the cost of both hardware and software are decreasing
tremendously. New applications in all areas of planning and strategic operation are being
developed and used at all levels.
Generally on a day-to-day basis a large volume of data is being generated in order to
fulfill various needs of the government. This data generally associated with human
resources, projects, plans, decisions, reports etc. as a matter of fact officials used to
maintain at the most one year data or up to five years data in the system. As it occupies
lot of space and also tends to take lot of time for retrieval, with the kind of technology
used at different levels, it was simply not possible to keep the historic data in the
computer. But the historic data, which the officials could not use for various reasons, can
play an important role in the planning and analysis purpose and can lead to an important
decision and/or can lead to lot of savings.
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5. Business Intelligence Technology
Information is one of the valuable assets to any Government. When used properly, it can
help planners and decision makers in making informed decisions leading to positive
impact on targeted group of citizens. However, to use information to its fullest potential,
the planners and decision makers need instant access to relevant data in a properly
summarized form.
In spite of taking lots of initiative for computerization, the government decision makers
are currently having difficulty in obtaining meaningful information in a timely manner
because they have to request and depend on IT staff for making special reports which
often takes long time to generate. An information warehouse can deliver strategic
intelligence to the decision makers and provide an insight into the overall situation. This
greatly facilitates decision makers in taking micro level decisions in a timely manner
without the need to depend on their IT staff. By organizing data into a meaningful data
warehouse, the decision makers can be empowered with a flexible tool that enables them
to make informed policy decisions for citizen facilitation and accessing their impact over
the intended section of the population.
The need to improve the decision making capabilities using the ever increasing
computing power, availability of RDBM Systems across heterogeneous platforms led to
the use of more and more information in the decision making process. Though the
information base in each of the sector has grown into hundreds of thousands of
GBs/MBs, the peculiarity of database structure does not allow one to perform a detailed
analysis on the data from the way one wants to do. Further, even if one does the analysis
on large volume of data one should know the complete designing of the data model and
the contents of it. It is practically not possible for any one to know the complete data
modelling and the contents and ad hoc query analysis is simply not possible. This implies
that only an expert in data modelling can do any sort of desired analysis. This clearly
shows the limitations in the conventional systems. As the top-level officials/decision
makers want to do detailed analysis before taking a decision the departments are now
looking for a framework by which one can accomplish multiple goals.
Three types of spontaneous questions that arise while dealing with the data include:
Those that produce a number: How many BPL families are benefiting?
Those that fit into a report: What are the industries broken out by the proposed districts
realignment?
Those that require analysis: How many additional acres of land will get benefit with the
new irrigation scheme? Will it make any difference in the life style of the farmers? Is
there any chance of stopping the migration of farmers?
How and from where one can find answer for the above queries. It is here that the
Business Intelligence –a new database technology in IT helps in analyzing and selecting
the right answer.
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5.1 What is Business Intelligence?
It is a broad category of applications and technologies for gathering, storing, analyzing
and providing access to data to help the decision makers in making decisions. Typically,
BI applications include decision support systems, query and reporting, On Line
Analytical Process (OLAP), statistical analysis, forecasting and data mining (a
technology to extract unknown and hidden patterns and knowledge from within the data).
Business Intelligence therefore is well suited for e-governance applications in the G2G
and G2C environment. For effective implementation of a BI solution, the de facto
condition is a solid and reliable data warehouse.
Data warehouse is a subject-oriented, integrated, time-variant, non-volatile collection of
data, cutting across the enterprise. Until there is a repository of accurate data across the
enterprise value chain, application of BI tools to analyze and aid in strategic business
decisions is impossible. Currently, data integrity, found wanting in most enterprises is the
most difficult and resource consuming stage of BI development and deployment.
5.2 Benefits of BI for better E-governance
1. Do not have to deal with heterogeneous and silo’s systems
2. Dependence on IT staff minimized
3. Can obtain easily decipherable and comprehensive information without the need
to use sophisticated tools.
4. Can perform extensive analysis of stored data to provide answers to exhaustive
queries. This helps them to formulate more effective strategies and policies for
citizen facilitation
5.3 BI and E-governance
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How to understand deeper our citizen’s needs
How to gain more operational effectiveness
How to provide better, faster access to critical data about service status while
increasing the value of information for those who makes decisions on different
levels of government
Develop project implementation plans on state and national level
Propose extensive and effective databases for the e-society
Provide extensive data for support of e-government
Create effective data and system architectures for more goal oriented solutions to
transitional problems
Going by the E-governance definition, Business Intelligence technologies, which help
policy makers draw key conclusions from data, become a critical component of any eGovernance initiative, as is shown in the figure below.
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BI and E-governance System
BI for E-governance Architecture
5.4 The Beneficiaries of the BI based system
From a layman’s angle the BI technologies are more towards G2G than other forms. All
the government plans and decisions can be arrived with the help of detailed multidimensional analyses of all the relevant data. In fact it helps the citizens more than the
government. The citizens can have a compact and compiled profile of each individual
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from the government and everything the citizen can have it as a web based report and the
same can be used wherever the citizen feels.
5.5 Knowledge management
Knowledge management (KM) is the management of information, skill, experience,
innovation, and intelligence.
Gartner defines KM as “the creation, capture, organization, access and use of
knowledge”. It uses many technology categories, almost none of which are exclusive to
KM. KM is a top down effort (practice) to try to understand and manage knowledge. KM
may use specific practices such as BI, collaboration, content management, email, video
conferencing, work place tools, portals and business applications. The knowledge
management is the one, which ultimately is to be used for planning and implementation
of various government schemes and projects.
Knowledge Management System
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Knowledge Management in the Intelligent Enterprise
Managing knowledge involves managing domains of knowledge that are valued for
achieving strategic objectives. The very nature of knowledge is that it changes fast and
renders information obsolete at a rapid pace. Building knowledge management requires
identifying and storing the collected information in an enterprise knowledge repository.
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6. Infrastructure at NIC
A nationwide computer communication network is operational since last two decades
connecting the center, states and districts centers. A large number of application systems
are successfully running in all the centers. As a next logical step SAN setup have been
established in the head quarter and select state centers. A BI setup has been established at
the head quarter. This includes a state of the art tool for data warehousing and datamining tool for advanced level data analysis. A number of state centers have been trained
on the total BI system development and implementation. Further to strengthen the
infrastructure three subgroups have been formed to assist in the development of BI
systems.
7. System Management
7.1 Issues in the BI-E-governance system
As a majority of the population lives in rural areas and are illiterates how to bring them
into the new system will be a big challenge to the government. Further, still there are
some villages which are not accessible and do not have electricity. To train the entire
population on how to use, how to communicate with the officials in case of any issue, one
has to have a detailed working strategy for its better utilization. In the e-governance
environment, the cost of providing infrastructure would be a big challenge. The costs of
new technologies get distributed and in comparison to the value generated, it is
worthwhile to invest in such infrastructure only when all the three participants effectively
put it into use.
Though the purpose of a data warehouse is to exploit information, most companies seek
to limit the information that a data warehouse user can access. There are many very good
and very bad reasons to restrict, or secure, the information in a BI system. All too often
this decision is made well after the warehouse is designed because the requirements for
security seldom surface during pilots, prototypes or even implementations
The data warehouses combine multiple sources of information with a primary goal of
integrating the information. This is one of the goals of every data warehouse. However,
organizations with mature decision support systems that span many databases and
systems may choose to integrate that data into one source as the reporting and application
demands outstrip their ability to "code" the functionality. The complexity of security
increases as different sources of information are combined. Financial information will
have a different security plan than sales and inventory. Different areas of the organization
may have their own security plan.
There are two schools of thought regarding the appropriate place for security. One logical
place for security to be implemented is in the application. Security is integrated into the
application and can be specific to the data accessed by the application as well as the
functions of the application. The other place for security is in the data warehouse.
Security is thereby provided consistently to all applications and has a single point of
maintenance.
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The maintenance and keeping the system on for all the time is a major area one has to
seriously work out the ways and means.
8. Conclusion
A framework for BI in E-governance is presented here. A large number of e-governance
applications are already in operation in most of the state centers. The necessary BI
infrastructure has been created at the head quarter and sufficient number of officials was
trained on BI. This is the right time for introducing BI in the e-governance and to further
strengthen the e-governance system. In order to incorporate the BI system and
implement this, initially one or two sectors may be identified and the BI system built over
it as a proof of concept. Once the desired results are achieved the same can be replicated
in other sectors of the government. Once the complete system is in place at the national
level for use a knowledge bank can be created for the entire E-governance environment.
Reference:
Compiled from the NET.
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