This is too radical for an indian politician: -g-
This week's feature in Infotech
Officers wake up to on-line Naidu
R Srinivasan reports on how video-conferencing is being used to govern Andhra Pradesh
The bureaucracy in Andhra Pradesh is slowly but surely taking to video-conferencing as part of their daily routine. Initially, there was some hesitation with the bureaucracy, especially senior officials in the districts like the Collector and District Magistrate preferring to talk on the phone rather than be seen and heard.
The reason is understandable. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu pops up on their screens at seven in the morning well ahead of the hour they are accustomed to getting down to work.
“I can speak on the phone with just my banian and lungi on. But when it comes to video- conferencing I need to get my clothes on and look presentable,” says a distraught District Collector.
All the same, the face-to-face meetings with real time decision-making has caused quite a sensation. Bureaucrats are thrilled even if they worry about being instantly accountable.
When the video-conferencing facility was formally inaugurated on November 1, there were initial problems. Of the 23 districts and two major towns (Vijayawada and Tirupati), only 18 districts could be linked.
Even with some of the on-line districts, there were problems in establishing connections and ever so often links broke down...
“The hiccups are now over. We are all set for electronic governance,” says T V Partha Saradhi, director of communications in the department of information technology. It is his job to oversee IT innovations in the state.
As per present arrangements, whenever an official in the district wants to have a video conference with those in Hyderabad or elsewhere in other districts, he has to contact the control room at Hyderabad. It takes 10 minutes to bring the video link to life.
Government is now planning permanent and dedicated video conference rooms at Hyderabad and at the district headquarters. Currently the video equipment is located in the Chief Minister's conference room here and in the offices of most of the Collectors in the districts.
Naidu has now given a directive that an exclusive studio or conference room should be identified in each district headquarters so that any number of local officials could make use of them, without running to the Collector's offices.
In the secretariat, too, an exclusive video conference room has been identified and it will be equipped shortly.
The government is also planning to bring its teleconferencing facilities under APSWAN (Andhra Pradesh State Wide Area Network) which is the umbrella highway for the video conference facility. Currently, teleconferencing is provided by the Department of Telecommunications and the government has to book the line in advance and pay lease charges. Once it comes under the APSWAN, the government need not incur any expenditure as DoT has provided a free for the first two years for APSWAN.
In the coming months, video-conferencing will largely be utilised by Naidu for periodic reviews of several welfare programmes. He will also use it to brief district officials on new programmes and how he wants them implemented.
Recently, the facility was utilised for a review of the Deepam programme which provides domestic cooking gas connections to poor rural households. During the video conference they came out with their doubts about the programme, especially with regard to the transfer of connections and the location of distribution points.
With officials from the civil supplies department and senior executives from the oil companies participating in the scheme sitting with him , Naidu was able to clear the doubts on the spot. In the normal course, it would have taken months, if not years, for these doubts to be cleared, especially since the district official would have had to write to the secretariat and the secretariat would have had to correspond with the oil companies.
Naidu has an ambitious welfare agenda ahead. This includes setting up a poverty eradication mission, grounding a new livestock policy, an agriculture policy, a blue print for rural roads, provision of safe drinking water for all habitats, total literacy programme and a score others.
He is committed to bringing a record 42 lakh families above the poverty line and totally eradicating illiteracy in the next five years. And speed is the essence for success of his programmes.
Naidu quotes Machiavelli's recommendation to the Prince that “the leader should be speedy and ruthless in exercising power”. If the new order could be brought into being quickly it would become easier to mobilise support and to discourage counter-revolution.
It is in this context that he plans to use the video conferencing facility for speedy implementation of the welfare programmes, even if he does not agree fully with the views of Machiavelli.
Naidu has no time to lose because in the next five years he has to achieve something no other State has even dreamt of — the core part of his Vision 2020."Our vision of Andhra Pradesh is a State where poverty is totally eradicated; where every man, woman and child has access to not just the basic minimum needs, but to all opportunities to lead a happy and fulfilling life; a knowledge-driven and learning society built on the values of hard work, honesty, discipline and a collective sense of purpose", says Naidu. The Chief Minister's performance targets are clear.
“We intend achieving an average of 11.5 per cent annual growth over the years leading to 2020. We hope to achieve a seven-fold increase in per capita incomes. We are confident that we will be able to create at least 17 to 20 million jobs. We hope to restrict population growth to 0.83 per cent per annum and we hope to make a rapid transition from agriculture to industry and services", he says.Information technology is a crucial part of making all this possible. The biggest gain that he hopes to make from it is the speeding up of decision-making and decentralising authority. An on-line government is readily accountable.
Unlike in the past four years when the Government was essentially a one-man show revolving around him, Naidu this time wants to achieve his goal of “Swarna Andhra Pradesh”, of Golden Andhra Pradesh, through team work. For this, he wants all his ministers, legislators and officials to think like him in a positive way, put in 18 hours of work every day and always remain driven by the objectives of providing a simple, moral, accountable, responsive and transparent Government.
Naidu has already started "training" his council of ministers for such team work. From day one when the new Government was formed, he has put his ministers through a rigorous routine of discipline and training. First, they were sent to the State Academy of Human Resource Development for basic training in ministerial functions.
Next, he put them through a series of yoga classes, with teachers imported from Bihar. The idea was to inculcate in them, though yoga exercises, positive thinking, simple food habits and meditation. Himself a yoga buff who does exercises and meditation for two hours before sunrise every day, Naidu feels that only such an exercise will help them put long hours in the service of the people.
When the Assembly session commenced last week, Naidu put his party legislators also to similar exercise. They were made to get up at 4 a.m., rush to the party headquarters at Jubilee Hills by 4.30 a.m. and undergo exercises and training.
A similar exercise is now on the cards for bureaucrats. Apart from yoga, the bureaucrats will also undergo exercises aimed at stress management and positive thinking. Once these aspects of human resource management are attended to, Naidu proposes to introduce them to IT and electronic governance.He strongly believes that the new millennium will witness the emergence of information age and the knowledge society.
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