Draft Report of the High Level Group on Services Sector

Table 2c: List of Projects in the National e-Governance Plan

Serial no.	Central Government Category	State Government Category	Integrated Services Category
1	Income Tax	Land Records	EDI(e-Commerce)
2	Visa& Immigration	Road Transport	e-Biz
3	MCA21	Property Registration	Common Service Centres
4	Insurance	Agriculture	Indian Postal
5	Citizen Database	Treasuries	e- Gateway
6	Central Excise	Municipalities	e-Courts
7	Pensions	Gram Panchayats	e-Procurement
8	Banking	Commercial Taxes
9	e-office	Police
10		Employment Exchange
11		e-district

Source: Planning Commission, 2007, XI Five Year Plan
A body under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister has been constituted to lay down the milestones and monitor the achievements of the NeGP. Of the 27 components only the modernisation and computerisation programme of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA 21) has become fully operational. A few States have already implemented some of the elements at least partly, particularly those related to land records, property registration and road transport. The other components are in various stages of planning and implementation. The ambitious programme launched under the NeGP is aimed at creating a governance mechanism, which will ensure efficiency, transparency, reliability and cheaper delivery of such services and at the same time will give a fillip to domestic IT and BPO industry.

2.3.6 Documentation for Visa and Work Permit

As noted above for the delivery of IT services Indian companies deploy human resources principally from the home base in order to provide on-site services and have also to send persons for business visits, prospecting, and sales. The on-site offshore mix generally starts at 50-50 in the delivery of IT services, while for BPO generally nothing more than business visits are required.

The non-transparent and discretionary approval processes of certain countries make it cumbersome for the IT companies to get the visas and work permits but the difficulties get compounded by the insistence of these countries on extensive local verification of documents. The authorities in these countries require that the original certificates of birth and educational qualification be certified at the person’s birthplace and/or place of education. Lack of proper records in the local bodies and the absence of a personal identification and tracking system in India make the task daunting. In addition some European Governments require all documents to be attested by the concerned government agency and the responsibility is discharged by a Secretary to Government in the State Government concerned, who is designated by the Ministry of Home Affairs for the purpose. After attestation the sealed documents are sent by the State Government to the Home Ministry for onward transmission to the Foreign Embassy or Consulate concerned. The onerous requirements for documentation impose large costs on the companies and entail considerable loss of business for them.
2.4 Responding to Challenges
2.4.1 Increasing the Availability of Talent

The industry has taken the lead in increasing the availability of qualified personnel for the BPO segment by instituting the NASSCOM Assessment of Competence (NAC), whereby a comprehensive skill assessment and certification programme for entry level talent and executives is undertaken. NASSCOM is also promoting the concept of ‘finishing schools’ to supplement the education of graduates who are not considered suitable for employment in the IT and BPO sector. This is a laudable initiative to improve the quality and enhance the employability of graduates from the current level of 10-25 percent.

As mentioned in Chapter I in the XI Five-Year Plan a bold initiative is underway for the expansion and up-gradation of higher education. However, for expanding the turnout of graduates and improving their quality more needs to be done.
The situation in the country is alarming in higher education: India cannot aspire to become a knowledge society with a GER of 11% against the world average of 23.2%. It has become imperative to consider ways of expanding the system for higher education. And one of the ways for doing this would be to eliminate the constraint of educational institutions being run only by not-for-profit organisations. The concern for social equity can be met by mandating full or part scholarship seats for meritorious students who do not have the means to pay the fees. A basic change in policy is warranted also for the following reasons:

1. 
   Hundreds of thousands of students are being deprived in the country at present of the chance to pursue higher education in institutions of quality. Those who can afford are going abroad and it is estimated that as much as US $3 billion is the annual outgo on this account. It would be far better if at least a part of this amount were spent in the country.
   
2. 
   The corporate entities, which have built a reputation in the country in manufacturing or services, are likely to run educational establishments of much better quality than new organizations being set up as trusts and societies.
   

The private sector institutions should of course be subject to regulation, but only on matters related to curriculum and standards of staffing and physical infrastructure, not for fees and salaries. The Group will recommend that to begin with only technical education be opened up to for-profit enterprises.
2.4.2 Improving Infrastructure

Improvement of physical infrastructure but of transport infrastructure and services is of fundamental importance for manufacturing, which depends on large volumes of goods being moved in the country and requires water and power to run the factories. While most elements of physical infrastructure have some relevance to IT and BPO industry telecommunication and electricity are the more important. The telecommunication sector in India can be said to have reached world class, but much improvement is needed in the quality and quantity of supply of electricity in order to improve the competitiveness of the IT and BPO industry. But the most important is the urban infrastructure. Success in the implementation of the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission for restoring the basic infrastructure of large cities and for bringing about reform in the functioning of urban local bodies will improve the competitiveness of the industry. What would be equally important is the creation of additional commercial space for renting and a commensurate increase in residential accommodation, educational, healthcare, retail and recreation facilities. For this it would be necessary for State Governments to facilitate the creation of new satellite townships. Some State Governments are already doing this by acquiring land and undertaking basic development for private developers to take up construction in allotted land. However, to augment the supply of residential and office space additional townships could be developed by the private sector if the State Governments undertake to provide trunk level services.

2.4.3 Strengthening Information Security

We have seen above that with the passage into law of the Bill introduced in the Parliament for amendment of the IT Act 2000 the data protection and information security framework in the country will be more or less adequate for the purposes of meeting the concerns of our trading partners. However, we have also noted that without a separate data protection law in conformity with the EU Directives on data protection and EU Safe Harbour Decision the cost of Indian suppliers is raised because of the need to invest in additional processes and additionally they are exposed to the uncertainties of arbitration under contractual agreements. This affects particularly the small and mid-size players. Although the need for introduction of such laws cannot be regarded as urgent it may be eventually necessary to facilitate the expansion of business for the small and mid size players in the EU market.

Effective implementation of the extant laws needs action for raising the awareness of the criminal justice system on various dimensions of information security, developing skills, standardising processes and use scientific evidence. The urban police units, which have acquired the basic understanding of cyber crimes and to move to the next level of using specialised forensic equipment to solve more complicated cases.