India Wants To Build Massive Digital Infrastructure To Cover 800 Million Rural Citizens by 2019

A $17-billion government program to build a national optical fiber network that will connect India’s gram panchayats, or village-level governments, aims to cover the entire country in three years and could be a game changer, an Indian minister told Forbes.
Ravi Shankar Prasad, minister of communications and IT, and the head of the advisory group which supervises the implementation of the Digital India program, as it is called, said the program was approved by the Indian cabinet last month, and aims to cover 50,000 gram panchayats this year, 100,000 next year and the remaining 100,000 the following year. India’s 600,000 villages where over 800 million live, are administered by these local self-governments. “The entire country will be covered by broadband within three years and the internet will reach the remotest villages,” Prasad said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who steered the Digital India policy, is personally overseeing the project to ensure deadlines are met, he said. 

The program would rapidly drive internet usage in India and boost the economy. “India is sitting at the cusp of a huge digital revolution,” said Prasad.

“Something big is unfolding,” said Hemant Joshi, partner at advisory firm, Deloitte Haskins & Sells. But the Digital India program is not without challenges, experts said. Finding the financial resources and meeting program deadlines could be foremost among those. India’s structure where governments ruling the country and the states are sometimes led by different political parties could throw up additional complications, Joshi said. There is also the matter of ‘right of way’ when laying thousands of miles of fiber optic cable.
The government plans to hire at least 10 CIOs to oversee the Digital India program in key ministries, and create four other senior positions for dealing with adoption of standards and security aspects.

The government will create an enabling platform that will aid in delivering government services to citizens as well as services in education, healthcare, entertainment and e-commerce. “Public services like land records and caste certificates will be made available online on demand online,” Prasad said. In conjunction with state governments, 20-hour e-literacy training programs in local languages will be conducted in 200,000 community service centers across the country.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/saritharai/2014/09/18/india-wants-to-build-massive-digital-infrastructure-to-cover-800-million-rural-citizens-by-2019/

SAP ACE Award 2014 to DFCCIL

In recognition of India Public Services sector in driving excellence and innovation using information technology, to improve the lives of people and deliver better, more effective government, SAP felicitated 16 Indian enterprises with the SAP Awards for Customer Excellence (ACE) for being at the forefront.

The awards were presented at the eight SAP ACE Award ceremony held at JW Marriot in New Delhi, India. The SAP ACE 2014 for Public Services award categories included Utilities, HR & Payroll, Mobility, Procurement, Finance, Urban local bodies, Innovation and Database computing.

Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd ( DFCCIL ) has been awarded the SAP ACE Award 2014, on 13th August, 2014 as a Special Recognition for leveraging technology in the. This being the first case in public sector wherein DFCCIL leveraged SAP solution for its core process and integrated the same with GIS both in the Corporate Office and in all the 14 CPM offices across both Eastern and Western Corridors. Implementation has been done by HCL. 

The award honoured Indian public services organisations that became the differentiator in improving people’s lives and help urban governments to be best run governments and to help cities contribute to a better run country.

http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31808&articlexml=MEGA-CORP-DIGEST-03092014026006

Smart Cities & Digital India Initiative by GoI

As expected PM Narendra Modi has approved an umbrella programme—Digital India- comprising various projects worth about INR 1 lakh crore ie USD 20 Billion  to transform the country into a digitally-empowered knowledge economy. The Digital India programme includes projects that aim to ensure that government services are available to citizens electronically and people get the benefit of the latest information and communication technology (ICT).

The Digital India programme is a transformed version of the already running National e-Governance Plan. It is in addition to 100 Smart Cities project in the next 5 years. The Mega trend of Smart Cities is set to drive urban development for the next decade and will drive demand for response, storage, multi-energy networks, smart devices, and new business models. In 2025, it is expected we will have around 26 global Smart Cities which will feature five of the eight aforementioned parameters. Around 50 percent of these will be located in North America and Europe.

There are several cities that are focusing on specific aspects that help it run efficiently, such as on their transport, energy and waste management. In example, implementation of smart grids is being pushed heavily for smart energy management. Eight key aspects that define a Smart City are smart governance, smart energy, smart building, smart mobility, smart infrastructure, smart technology, smart healthcare and smart citizen.

Frost & Sullivan research estimates a combined market potential of $1.5 trillion globally for the smart city market in segments of energy, transportation, healthcare, building, infrastructure, and governance. If one compares that to GDP of nations in 2014, it will sit above the GDP of Spain, thus making it the 12 largest GDP in the world. Yet, while the potential is huge, the challenge faced is finding funding and developing the right business model, as many cities in the Western world do not have the finances available to take on some mammoth-sized projects. As such, four main models that will be used, through which companies will engage with city authorities and utilities to tap into this market will be used: Build Own Operate (BOO), Build Operate Transfer (BOT), Build Operate Manage (BOM) and Open Business Model (OBM).

Based on Frost & Sullivan’s study on “Strategic Opportunity Analysis of the Global Smart City Market” published in 2013.Smart Cities & Digital India Initiative by GoI

Can Delhi and its Discoms afford Subsidies?

For a very long time, the supply of power to Delhi was a government undertaking. But after decades of losses, in 2002, the state government decided to reduce its hold and unbundle what was then called the Delhi Vidyut Board. BSES bid to take over the Board and about nine months later, Reliance Power bought over BSES. That left Delhi’s power distribution in the hands of a public private partnership between Reliance and the Delhi government. And the new entity’s biggest challenge was to corporatize the creaking government enterprise.

BSES went for massive technological upgradation including IT infrastructure to control losses. BSES invested  Rs 4,000 crore in augmenting the utility’s infrastructure. 

The IT project helped the organization reduce losses from 60 percent to 20 percent. It also lowered consumer complaint levels by over 89 percent with the grievance closure rate of 91 percent.

That has allowed BSES to turn into a self-sustaining enterprise and save the Delhi Government Rs 15,000 crore.

Business process re-engineering and IT project completely revamped the way the electricity utility functions. It curbed corruption, reduced power losses by over 40 percent—and saved the Delhi government crores. “The amount it saved the Government—by not doling out urban subsidies—played significant role in funding the Commonwealth Games,” says Singh K.B. Singh, VP-I.T, BSES who was responsible for transforming it into a modern and profitable electric utilities co..

Integrated Rating for State Power Distribution Utilities

The Integrated Rating methodology for State Power Distribution Utilities was developed by  Ministry of Power  (MoP) and unveiled in the State Power Ministers conference held in July 2012. The methodology  was developed by MoP keeping in view poor financial health of State Distribution utilities and the need to base future funding exposures on an objective rating mechanism. The main objectives of developing the integrated rating methodology for the state distribution utilities are:

• To devise a mechanism for incentivising/dis-incentivising the entities in order to improve their operational & financial performance.
• To facilitate realistic assessment by Banks/FIs of the risks associated with lending exposures to various distribution utilities and enable funding with appropriate loan covenants for bringing improvement in operational, financial and managerial performance. 
• May serve as a basis for Govt. assistance to the state power sector through various schemes like RAPDRP, NEF, etc. MoP has mandated Power Finance Corporation (PFC) to co-ordinate the rating exercise, which in turn has appointed ICRA & CARE to carry out the rating exercise. The exercise does not cover State Power/Energy Departments and private sector distribution utilities.

http://ajaysrivastava.blogspot.in/2013/03/integrated-rating-for-state-power.html

GIS: From Tool to Spatial Data Information System

Five years ago, I started this blog. GIS has graduated from a data capture and manipulation tool to SDIS and merged with the mainstream IT system.  Today’s GIS includes lots of technologies, from programming, remote sensing, web, html, database, IT networking, server management, scripting or automation to route and network analysis…and the list goes on. The problem is that we cannot have every skill on the list in reality. I mean all of these are good skills to GIS; we just cannot be an expert on all subjects. Additionally, GIS is not a pure science, it rests applications. This means, on top of GIS, we will need background knowledge of the discipline whatever the choice for the applications of GIS.

Consider a planner in Public Works Department needs to work on a roadway expansion project, or increase the posted speed limit. The planner might use GIS to (a) identify where to put noise sensors measuring noise impacts in the study, or (b) to use GIS to justify that the noise impacts in an environmental study are within acceptable limits, (c) or use GIS to produce maps explaining the road expansion project and related mitigations in a public hearing. The planner might use GIS to determine the radius of area in which affected homes would receive notifications to attend a coming public hearing. Another planner works on airport expansion project might use GIS to determine which homes can receive free triple-pane window replacement as mitigation to noise impacts justified by an environmental impact report. Examples go on and on. 

When looking at these examples, obviously GIS is used as a tool to achieve the business objectives, to facilitate the operations or justify the legal fulfillment of having environment impact studies done, or simply justify a ‘go ahead’ for a project. The output from the GIS becomes the input to the business process or reaching business decisions. To implement and build the roadway expansion, we will need planners, engineers. GIS is used as a tool to assist reaching the goal. In reality, many engineering departments will assign GIS duties to experience planners instead of creating a ‘pure’ GIS function.

Nevertheless, there are areas that GIS has less emphasis on requiring background knowledge of disciplines, such as creating geo-data for base map, or GIS function in publishing maps in redevelopment agency. But when you think about sanitary base map, don’t you think that the department would want someone who knows GIS and at the same time has sanitary engineering background to understand and read the sanitary construction engineering drawings to ensure accurate data are captured into GI system? 

If you have engineering background, the engineering background will be the core skills that lead you to the appropriate position in engineering related job, and GIS skills would be the secondary skills that make you more successful and ready for the peripheral GIS duties often added to the engineering tasks. GIS is good to have it, but you want to use it in combining with your background and core skills. Out of the GIS skills, you might want to focus on database queries, spatial analysis, CAD interoperability and some mapping skills. As to almost all disciplines programming is helpful. If you perceive you would have lots of repeated tasks, programming in GIS helps to deal with that.

GIS is still a very powerful and useful tool. Like many other professions, it’s a matter of how to apply the technology, and that makes a difference. It is important to find out where you stand in using a technology in combining with other skills you have. GIS would not mean the same for everyone.

Restrict Black Sheeps to Prevent Blackouts and then Think Smart (Grid)

Half the country was without power yesterday (31st July 2012) and day before in the biggest blackout the world has ever seen. Three regional power grids collapsed from too much demand, leaving miners trapped underground, metro services at a halt and people sweltering in the summer heat. Power outages can happen at any time. Power outages can result from many different occurrences and events, including storms, natural disasters, animals, motor vehicle accidents and planned outages. It is a statistical fact that approximately 70% of all power outages across the U.S. are caused by weather-related events, such as thunderstorms, ice storms, heavy winds and lightning strikes, as well as other natural disasters like floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes.

 

Power grid is archaic in India, part of the problem with the grid is also the lack of  automation and maintenance. Many of us know that there is considerable leakage of power thru illegal tapping. Transmission efficiency improvement is another issue. Improvements in this area can easily restore & solve about 10 to 15% of the power demands and projects like R-APDRP should be implemented properly to improve the situation.

Biggest problem is huge T&D losses mainly due to power theft and misuse. Theft (of all types) represent a psychological problem (not just socio-economic as propounded by many analysts) that can be tackled only thru strict rules and regulations. Political indifference to this problem, and rampant power theft by industries in connivance to electricity department are the biggest reasons for the continued mess. Even huge investments done in the name of feeder renovation programe launched with APDRP have not resulted in any tangible improvement. Along with technical solutions socio-psychological approach is also desirable. Perfect energy accounting, auditing and pin pointing responsibility for unreasonable energy losses/leakage is primary requirement. People's participation is proved and powerful tool to address the problem.

In fact, Indian power grid is still not ready for a smart grid project. We need a reliable and uninterrupted power not just to those shopping malls, multiplexes and IT parks but to the needy farmers in those drought hit areas where currently the crop cannot sustain because the water cannot be pumped to the farms in time due to power shortage for almost 12 hours every day.  Many argue that Smart-Grid is quite uneconomical compared to the cost of integrating smart-grid equipment to decades old grids. Many consider Smart-Grid as an incapable innovation especially with the conventional system of power Generation, Transmission and Distribution. Instead, microgrids with distributed power generation are the answer to a country with huge population. The design & implementation model there is going to be quite different from what is being done in the US. Microgrids will be less prone to terrorist/security threats and also to blackouts.

Remember, Smartgrids, won’t prevent an outage, but they might allow you to restore things more quickly. Smart grid would definitely help in balancing demand vs. supply, establishing interoperability and thus improving efficiency, if the proper policies are enforced and required infrastructure is develop.