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M-governance empowers govts to go mobile

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CIOL Bureau
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BANGALORE, INDIA: Mobility has emerged as an effective tool to connect the world at large. Having stepped away from the traditional roles in terms of communication, new age mobility has brought in the capabilities that empower enterprises to dispense, utilize and process information on the go.

For governments worldwide, inclusive growth and sustainable development are crucial, and they are prioritizing the bridging of the digital divide to better render services to citizens, bringing in greater transparency and sound governance.

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Consider the case of Indian Railways. With a large ticketing network with counters spanning across 2,500 locations and catering to over 1.5 crore passengers daily, the Railways has adopted mobility solutions from Sybase that enabled them to efficiently handle 60 per cent of their total unreserved traffic with significant cost savings, helping them improve passenger satisfaction with a 24x7 ticketing experience.

Precisely, government agencies are in action everywhere. Citizens need service, the less fortunate need help, and our vital national interests need protection. In this era of increased accountability and shrinking budgets, all levels of the government are looking for ways to improve efficiency and reduce costs while maintaining transparency.

Increasingly, people are turning to mobile to accomplish their business and service goals by extending enterprise information and applications to anywhere they are needed.

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In the government sector, m-governance and mobile technology can make a difference in the way the government and civic bodies dispense services to citizens. Mobile solutions help bring transparency, efficiency, and effectiveness to the entire value chain. For example, the citizen could register themselves for disaster warnings or paying property, sales and income taxes.

M-governance can also have a significant impact by enabling law enforcement organizations to access relevant information from any location. This information is critical to the successful investigation, identification, tracking, and prosecuting of cases.

Many government agencies and departments play an active role in ensuring both the proper delivery of programs and compliance with regulations and standards. Mobile solutions can enable inspectors and other field personnel to gather this information at the source and distribute it wherever it is needed.

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Government organizations are already realizing the significant productivity and cost benefits associated with deploying these solutions in areas, such as, food, flight, roadside, and housing, fleet management, etc.

One of the fast growing areas of m-governance is that of field data collections. Voter registration is another critical area where government agencies can utilize the use of mobile solutions. This can greatly reduce the data entry errors and time taken to collect and enter data through the traditional paper-based systems.

Mobile point-of-care applications offer tremendous potential for today's healthcare industry, including the public sector. They enable the governments’ healthcare providing capabilities to deliver service, while still providing timely and secure access to all the critical information.

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Mobility improves data quality and information flow throughout the enterprise. It enables delivery of information in real-time, faster time to deployment, enhanced services and secure integration of diverse government applications.

However, m-governance is still in early stages of adoption across the world and India can perhaps take the lead, setting example for other developing nations to follow.

The author is vice president — Strategic Industries, SAP India