Digital Is The Way To Go!

It is 2015 and digital is ruling
the world. From Digital advertising, digital media, digital social life to Digital political debates and Digital
outraging – the internet is the main medium for just about everything now. And
with the twitter savvy Prime Minister at its helm, even the government is going
digital. It’s time for #DigitalIndia!

And oh what a convenience it is!

Why is e-governance a convenience,
you ask? Glad you asked! Here’s why.

Cut to 2013.

My little sister was about to get
married. Along with the big fat Indian wedding, an even bigger honeymoon was
being planned. They were to cover almost all of Thailand during a 15 day long
honeymoon. Dresses were bought, shopping lists were made and excitement was
almost tangible. There was only one hitch – getting sister’s passport made. No
problem, said everyone. There are four months! Just apply now for an emergency
passport and you’ll get it in no time – they said. So she applied for it.
Getting a passport made when you have all the right documents, all the
verifications and everything else in place is easy breezy, true? False! It took
my sister three months of religious passport office visits to finally get it. Infact
it was such a close shave that at one point the sister and her husband debated
postponing their hotel reservations. Even in emergency services, the entire
process was a mess. Ask my sister how’s her passport doing and she might strangle
you with her bare hands. No kidding.

Cut to 2015.

I wanted to renew my passport,
and get new ones issued for the husband and the toddler. Oh yeah, I keep
planning exotic foreign trips that never happen, and I was going to set it
right once and for all. But because of my sister’s far-from-pleasant experience
with passport office, I was a tad scared. The husband said check out their
online system, it’s pretty cool. Yeah right, I said with a sarcastic snort, our
government will still take five decades to get digital systems right, ha ha.
Just check it out, he said. I did. It was neat and I was amused. I filled out
the forms, fixed an appointment for the same week. At the appointment day, all
three of us arrived at the passport office at 1pm and got out at 2:15pm. We got
our passport through post on the sixth day. True story.

Getting a passport with the right
documents in the old pre-digital age : Nightmare.

Getting a passport with the right
documents in the digital age : Cake walk!

The fact that we are still to actually go on a foreign trip is a
totally different matter, though.

Now you see what I mean? The #DigitalIndia revolution is helping the
citizens in a big way. It makes:

Procedures simpler
Saves effort
Saves time

And seriously,
time is money, so that last one’s got my full vote to the moon and back. (Of
course it’s a legit phrase, pffttt!). The importance of Digital India campaign can be depicted with the following image:

Source

E-Governance is of the utmost importance because when the government is enabled and efficient, everything else kind of falls automatically into place. I speak from experience, and it is not just the passport incident, everything that is digital, is making lives easier and productive,
is good for the country. As someone who moves from city to city ever two years
or so, I rely heavily on digital processes. From e-Banking to Paying Bills
online, e-governance is something that takes away a lot of potential-stress
from my life. And no stress equals happiness, right?

Our government has an extensive
plan and a grand vision of digitizing India, to empower citizens by providing
easy access to citizen services, information and have a solid platform to
collaborate with the government. The key to achieving this dream, this vision
is of course, Technology that is tested, sound and well-researched. I find this
vision exciting! As a citizen of this big and developing country, I think that having
simplified and systematic processes will make life a lot easier.

Source

And to achieve this dream of
#DigitalIndia our government has to go all out in terms of planning and
efforts, and also partner with a leading technology firm like Intel. Combine with it some ideas from citizens
who actually will have to deal with it all, and viola! You get the perfect
e-solution for e-governance!

Because every idea counts, here
is how I believe efficient and well-thought-through e-governance through
technology can accelerate the digital-India vision:

E-Bills

o
Hassle free paying of all bills online (Electricity / Water etc). Will save a lot of time for ladies because in small towns, ladies are the ones who go to pay the bills because ladies line is said to be smaller. Which is a myth. No line is smaller when it’s bill paying time.

E-Locker

o
Secure storage of all important documents at one
digital locker. Imagine how big a help this would be for all government applications or even for students filling various entrance exam forms etc. Give the fact that Indian has the maximum youth population in the world, the amount of times and energy saved here will be immense.

E-Info

o
Vital information like population registration,
parliamentary on-goings and other
reforms that need an RTI filing, should be available to interested citizens
through an online check of proper documents

o Information about certain court cases, public
reform bills and similar important citizen issues and agendas should be made
available by a making an online check of documents

E-Help

o
Tax calculation and payment

o
Banking.

o
Pension for senior citizens should be all digitized and made easy

o
Passport is already made extremely easy and I am
in love with it already!

o
UID or the Unique ID generations can be made
much easier with the use of a proper digital technology.

o
Population Registration can be made super easy
and quick if we have a digital solution in place

o
Traffic Updates might sound trivial, but ask
people in Mumbai and Bangalore, and you’ll see how crucial it is! If there is a
government backed system for getting and
submitting live traffic updates for a city, it will be of immense help to the
citizens, really.

o
Police complaints and filing FIR through the
internet. In the world where apathy and outrage seem to be on the rise, we
really could do well with a fast and responsive digital police system which lets
citizens file a complaint and/or track it online. Just think about how much
this will help the women folk, the ‘Daughter of India’!

Here’s hoping the day will soon
come when technology will enhance the governance, and empower the citizens. A
lot of it is already in the pipes and things are looking up already.

God bless the power of Technology
and the World Wide Web, really!