AP, TCS unwrap SmartGov

BANGALORE: The government of Andhra Pradesh unveiled its e-governence product to give a workflow process in the secretariat of the state. Christened ‘SmartGov’ the product has been developed by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in association with the Government Of AP (GOAP).

"SmartGov is a framework for automating the functions of any government department at all levels of the administrative hierarchy. We have implemented the framework at the secretariat of the government of Andhra Pradesh and we are engaged in high level talks with Jammu & Kashmir government for implementing a project of similar nature," said, TCS, head of e-Governance Practice and operations in Andhra Pradesh, V Chandrashekhar.

The exchange of information between government departments necessitates the creation and maintenance of critical databases and SmartGov is to enable the AP government to re align them in the area of e-governance. In the product development cycle of SmartGov, the first step was to study the functioning of the secretariat. It was then decided jointly by TCS and GOAP that any system that caters to the departments would have to consist of smaller modular applications. Depending on the uniqueness of these applications across departments, they were classified.

The system constitutes of six core applications — security, knowledge management, dashboard, central filing system and workflow process management system. It has 100 central applications and 354 department level applications spread across 33 different government departments. "To start the operations we have implemented 97 applications for the system and the remaining applications will be completed by December 2, 2002," Chandrashekhar informed.

SmartGov is designed to be a user-friendly interface with a web-enabled help desk powered by CMC, Hyderabad branch. The Government has spent more than Rs four crore towards the development of the product and TCS has invested close to about Rs 24 crore. "We started work on the erstwhile SKIMS (Secretariat Knowledge Information Management System) in the year 1999 and since then we were closely working with the government machinery to try and come out with this kind of solution. We have spent more than 150 man years of time in developing SmartGov," Chandrashekhar informed.

"A transparent and responsive Government - guided by excellence, powered by knowledge, and driven by wisdom, is my dream. And this dream is very close to being a reality thanks to this product, for now there will be nothing like Red Tapism within the government machinery. We will be totally transparent to the outside world and I am proud of this. I am sure that this product will catch the eye balls of a number of governments trying to make themselves user friendly and efficient all over the globe," said Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, N Chandrababu Naidu.

"We have worked with TCS in developing and conceptualizing this initiative and hence we have an agreement for a 20 percent ownership of the product, while they own the rest 80 percent. So in the long run this will mean revenues for the state government as well," he added.