Inching towards true m-Governance: Sandeep Kumar Sultania, Transport Commissioner, Telangana

For having real-time visibility, Transport department of Telangana has connected all its offices to a central server. In addition, it has launched an ambitious m-governance platform – an m-Wallet app to offer a paper free ride. So far over 10 lakh people have downloaded the application. Now it is looking to integrate e-Challan payment, traffic and weather updates options into the app.

In an interview with Mohd Ujaley, Sandeep Kumar Sultania, Transport Commissioner, Government of Telangana says that the goal is to give all relevant services through one platform, so that people do not need to go to different places to fetch information.

How has been the transport department of Telangana tryst with IT?

We are a highly IT driven organization. Most of our processes and backend are already digitized. The basic purpose of using IT in the government department is to enable a smooth and hassle free interaction between citizen and government. This is only possible when you cut the number of touch-points and offer as many services as possible through a single platform.

In order to do this, in the transport department, we have removed manual processes. Most of our services are available on the Internet. In fact, now you can apply for the learning license by sitting in your home. You only have to visit our office to give your thumb impression and photo.

For our own administrative purpose, we have connected all our offices in the state to a central server, so now we have real-time information about any transaction taking place in any part of the state. This has helped us in improving our standards and accuracy of information. All our decisions are now data driven. That is the main reason public reliability has increased and corruption in the system has reduced.

What are the major IT related project your department is working on?

In recent past, we have taken a number of steps to use IT for our own benefit. We have 49 offices across the state. Today, they are connected on real-time basis to our central server. This gives us better visibility about our own activities. Also, you are aware that to cut the burden of physically producing vehicle documents like driving license, registration certificate to enforcement authorities, we have recently launched a mobile app called ‘RTA m-Wallet’ and officially declared it as valid during any enforcement done by the police. This app allows a user to download digital copies of documents like driving licence and registration certificate and insurance papers, which could be shown to the police and RTA authorities when demanded. Very soon we are going to add pollution certificate too. This app has been a major hit and over 10 lakh people have downloaded it.

You mentioned about m-Wallet. This application is basically handling lot of personal data. So how do you make sure data privacy and security, especially when a third-party is involved in your project?

I agree with you that when a third-party is involved, possibility of data breaches are high. Hence, we use best available security measures to ensure data privacy and security. In addition, for all projects, we have a system of third-party audit periodically. For any project, we always try to follow all the basic project management principles that also includes security measures. In addition, we are regularly in touch with big technology companies and innovative startups. Most of them have offices in Hyderabad. Our interaction with them helps us understand the emerging trends and interesting solutions to our problems. So for us, security and privacy is priority. From a simple firewall to a close circuited architecture of security, we use everything.

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What have been the major challenges related to IT in your department?

Basically, there are two-three types of challenges that we face. Most of the staff is senior. They have been into services for over 20-25 years. They have never received formal computer training. At times they are reluctant, not because they don’t want to use IT, it is just that they are little apprehensive about their ability to do it.

The second major challenge that we are facing is lack of IT skills and a rich knowledge base. In the government, we do not have critical IT talent. We would like do lot of things but we don’t have developers. Even in some case if you have, the process is so cumbersome that they are not able to do the job. If you want some work to be done, you have to go for tender and chose the lowest bidder (L1). So the system has its own limitation but fortunately with government focus on the Digital India programme, the pace of IT deployment within government departments has increased. In future, you will see much more activities.

What are your future plans?

The next big thing that we are going to do is to make our entire interaction with the people, appointment based. Most of our offices have time limitations and officers can only meet a limited number of people in a day. The system is so unpredictable that even if you visit an office, there is no guarantee that your work will be done. In order to get over this, we are working on an appointment based system like passport seva project. A person will seek appointment through our website or mobile app from available slots. Once their appointment is confirmed, it means that their work on that day will be done. This will not only ease the process but also remove the corruption and touts from the system.

Secondly, our plan is to expand the m-Wallet service. We have an e-challan system. We would like to link m-Wallet and e-Challan. So in case of any challan, the citizen can make the payment via the m-Wallet. Once a person is challaned, he or she will get the notification in the m-Wallet app itself. We will integrate a payment gateway into m-Wallet, that will enable a person to make the payment in the app itself. Also, we are trying to incorporate CCTV footage, traffic and weather updates in the mobile app. So that people do not need to go to different platforms to access this information.