An open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Ibrahim Ahmad

Dear Prime Minister Modi,

Every IT and telecom company I meet is in all praises about new announcements coming from you and your ministers, and the rise in positive sentiments this has lead to. At the same time they are all waiting with baited breath for action on the ground. That, they believe would be the real test.

While private sector organizations will take care of themselves, governance and government services is clearly your responsibility. And many of us believe that it is your passion too. E-governance has been a pet subject for many years in India now, and thousands of crores of rupees has gone in to automate and computerize the same old archaic and bureaucratic systems and processes. Despite that, there is a huge gap between government investments in ICT and the benefits to citizens.

Let me give you a small example. My original driving license is from Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh. It was about to expire sometime back, and since I am now settled in Gurgaon, I decided to get my driving license renewed it in Gurgaon only. I decided to check out the Haryana Govt. website. After some difficulty I found out that I could apply for getting a driving license renewed online. After that it was a frustrating struggle. The directions were vague, and the questions one had to answer need deep knowledge of government terminologies. And finally what I discovered was that all that was being given in the name of e-Governance was application form download. Appointment could not be taken online, forms could not be submitted online, documents could not be uploaded, and fees could not be paid online.

Disappointed, I took the required printouts and reached the concerned office, only to discover that there was a long queue. After a 45-minute wait when my turn came, the dealing clerk told me these printouts are of no use, and I must purchase them for Rs.10, from another counter which also had a long queue. There is a long story after that also, but the crux is that I was told that since my previous license was from another Uttar Pradesh, I must go there and get an NOC (a very popular bureaucratic term when things have to be stalled). Haryana Govt seems to have no way getting an official NOC from a govt. department in Uttar Pradesh. Or, I was told, I should apply for a one-month learners license in Gurgaon, and then come again for a permanent license.

Needless to say what I did to finally get a license, but all my perceptions about e-gov in India were set right. Clearly we have not even touched the surface of government in terms of leveraging IT. In the days to come, lots of Modi’s dreams – Make in India, Digital India, Swachh Bharat, My India – will be successful only if the quality of governance goes up.

This will be the real test for Modi, and perhaps he will have to go back to the basics for that.

(This article was first published in Voice&Data)