Nemmadi program in KarnatakaNemmadi means peace of mind. The Vision of the Nemmadi project is to empower rural citizens, provide direct access of government services to the citizens and bring government services to the doorstep of the citizen thereby bridging the digital divide in Karnataka

1. IntroductionGovernment of Karnataka (GoK) has been a pioneer in leveraging Information technology in easing the lives of both urban and rural citizens. One of the most path breaking of these e-governance applications is Bhoomi that enables “over the counter” delivery of computerized land records to farmers.

While the Bhoomi program tremendously benefited the farmers by enabling them to get their land record over the counter however there was a demand for establishing of delivery centres for land records at the village level itself. The need for decentralization of Bhoomi catalyzed the development of the “Nemmadi program” program of the Government of Karnataka.

The State Government understood that it could not establish and operate computer centres at every village and hence decided to establish telecentres in the villages under a Public Private Partnership model. It was also apparent that these village telecentres would not be viable just for delivery of land records and other e-governance services needed to be delivered through these telecentres.

2. Developing a suitable service modelThe Revenue department at the taluka level delivers about 35 citizen centric services to the rural citizens. These include, registration of births and deaths and issue of birth and death certificates to the rural citizens, issue of caste and income certificates , selection of beneficiaries for old age pensions and other social security schemes etc. On an average about 30,000 of such services are delivered annually to the citizens from each of the talukas across the state. Since there was a critical mass of such services, hence implementation of an e-governance program for the citizen centric services delivered from taluka office of the revenue department would create an impact for the citizens also

It was not possible to create a citizens database for delivery of the above described services like issue of caste certificates hence a blended approach was adopted. This included building the software in a manner that would work according to the existing manual work flow at the taluka office and subsequently create a citizens database in an incremental fashion. The first time issue of service to the citizen like issue of a caste certificate would be through the digitized workflow process but the next time the caste certificate can issued from the database.

3. Creating a robust e-governance infrastructureThe e-Governance service delivery infrastructure comprises of the following components – a) State Data Centre, b) Wide Area Network c) Delivery Channels d) Departmental servers at the Taluka office

3.1. State Data Centre ( SDC) Karnataka has been one of the first states to create a State Data Centre for both hosting all e-governance applications of the state The State data centre is the only means for delivery channels to connect to the departmental servers thereby isolating them from the various kinds of security threats from the internet.

3.2. Wide Area NetworkFor the current delivery of RDS services and Bhoomi services, the State government has set up a network of VSATS linking each of the taluka server to the State Data Centre. Later once the Karnataka State wide Area Network (KSWAN) is set up, these taluka servers will connect to SDC through the KSWAN.

3.3. Taluka ServersThe Taluka servers are both local repository of data and additionally data updation due to many of the work flow processes for both Bhoomi and RDS services takes place at the Taluka server.

3.4. Village Telecentres Village telecentres are the channel for the citizen to make requests and access various e-governance services.

4. Software for RDS servicesThe Software for delivery of RDS services developed by NIC has several innovative features like

1. Multiple modes of delivery of services - As mentioned earlier, services through the RDS software can be delivered in three ways

a. Work flow - following the existing workflow process followed by the taluka officials.

b. Reissue of previously issued certificates. The RDS software can track if an certificate has been issued earlier to the citizen and thereafter reissue the same from the database of previously issued certificates.

c. In case a validated citizens database is created the RDS software has a capability to use the same for delivery of RDS services also.

Since the above three methods are generic for delivery of all government services to the citizens, the RDS software is scalable to add other government departments and processes and increase the basket of services being offered through the RDS software.

2. Reports – Use of RDS software allows one to track the delivery of certificates and also to monitor and thereafter rectify the delays in processing of the citizen service requests.

3. Offline functionality – The RDS software has been built on a rich client model with the master data being stored in the local machine also. This allows the application to deliver both online and offline functionality, i.e. service requests of

the citizens at the village telecentre can be saved in the local telecentre machine even when connectivity to the State Data Centre is not available.

4. Use of Digital Signature – The RDS software has a feature of digital signature by the issuing authority. The RDS software generates an XML of this digitally signed certificate and displays it as a 2 D bar code. This feature can help both in checking the authenticity of the certificate and can be later used to dispense with the physical signature of the official on the certificate.

5. Biometric authentication - Finger print authentication for login and updation is used for non-repudiation by the government officials.

6. Unicode - Unicode is being used to store data in the local language. The software can be customized to allow multi-language user interfaces. Currently “Kannada” and “English” languages are supported

5. RDS Deployment ExperienceRDS Services were started in Mandya Taluka office in May 2004 initially with only 5 but over the next 12 months the portfolio was expanded to 37 services. These services can be categorized in 4 major categories

1. Various types of Caste and Income related certificates

2. Registration of births and deaths and issue of birth and death certificates

3. Application for social security schemes like Old Age Pension, Widow pension, Physically handicapped pension

4. Other certificates requires by the citizens from the taluka office like Residence certificate, Domicile certificate, Agri labour certificate, Agriculturist certificate, Small and Marginal farmer certificate.

Between May 2004 to September 2006 the RDS model was piloted in 13 talukas of 4 districts of the state and services were delivered to the citizens through about 70 village telecentres. The experience of the pilot helped in understanding the various issues that would be faced during scaling the program in the entire state. The State government also decided to go in for a phased rollout and initially decided to start 800 telecentres at hobli ( sub taluka ) level in the State.

In September 2006, the project was awarded to the private partner through a transparent tendering process and by April 2007 about 750 telecentres were established in entire state.

6. Delivery of Services through the Village telecentreThe objective of establishing these village telcentres has clearly succeeded in June 2007, about 4 Lakh records were distributed through the village telecentres and in July this may increase to more than 6 Lakhs. The process of starting Nemmadi services from the taluka office is more difficult as unlike Bhoomi, Nemmadi is a new program and requires efforts in change management and training of the taluka staff. However in the past these services have been started from 52 taluka offices and over 2 Lakh services were delivered to the citizens in June. The initial deployment of Nemmadi has convinced the department officials that Nemmadi not only delivers the service to citizens but also improves administrative functioning and there is a demand for starting Nemmadi from the other taluka offices also.

7. ConclusionThe State government of Karnataka has embarked on an innovative launch-learn-innovate methodology for delivery of e-governance services to the citizens. Each of the components of the e-Governance architecture as mentioned above has been thoroughly tested through pilot deployments and the learnings from the pilots have been incorporated in the solution. With the commencement of RDS services in the entire state and delivery of services through the 800 village telecentres, the state government is confident that its vision of empowering the society by providing direct access to government services at the door step of the citizen will be realized.

The commencement of Nemmadi services from 177 talukas from the state and delivered from 800 village telecentres will prove a model for delivery of other citizen centric services from other departments as welll.

Further it will set the stage for expanding this program by setting up additional 4500 ( approx) village telecentres under the Common Service Centre scheme of the Government of India.

However , most people when discussing about e-Governance confine the discussion to technology, and technical terms like products to be deployed, server specifications etc. While technology choices can influence the success of e-Governance programs but they are only enabling factors. The most important process of e-Governance however involves transformation of governance and the softer issues concerning training, hand holding and change management. It is designing of these softer issues that determine the success or failure of e-governance programs and it is these difficult issues that have been successfully managed in Karnataka.