Pain points in e-Governance - 2 : Vendor Locking

 Vendor Locking

 Government has involved many big/small IT companies for development and implementation of many technical project due to lack of its internal capacity. Most of the times companies quote unjustifiable low rate to get these contracts. Many projects are singed for a duration of 3-5 years, with provision for extension. Once the work start many fails to deliver in time. One of the main reason for this is failure is frequent change request in application, many times resulting change in scope of work. If the raised Change Request involves financial, then a committee will look in to the costing quoted by the company and then negotiation, renegotiation, walkout, threats of law suits/arbitration and finally every minor word in contract wake up, resulting in delay leading to service hampering resulting in public inconvenience.

 Two questions arise out of it. One why government keep changing its requirement and other is why company must keep charging for additional requirement even after reading risk factors, assumptions etc., of the tender documents.

 The answer for the first question lies in understanding the Government’s stake holders in the ecosystem. Unlike government, a company will have a very well defined stakeholder and they are in limited numbers. But in government everyone who resides/born in that area are stakeholders. Imagine the diversity of stakeholders, Rich/poor, Law abiding citizens/criminals, minority/majority etc., its complexity multi fold with addition of caste, language, region etc. With these diversity, it’s quite natural for any sensitive government to keep changing its requirements, it’s almost impossible to have fixed scope for any government application.

 On the other hand, a company which has quoted low while bidding, faces crisis at the time of development, since it must deploy additional resource for this additional requirement. Hence to minimize the loss they quote high price at the time of change request. Usually most of the tender have predetermined man moths rate quotes. But the big question here will be duration for development/implementation of additional requirement.

 In additional to these issues like timelines, SLA’s, delayed payments etc., create a situation where both the parties burn the bridges, resulting in vendor lock. In these situation, smaller companies just vanish form the scene, leaving behind absolute chaos and while big companies can afford to forgoes these cost, but they will not work beyond thresholds. Nothing moves on either side.

If this is the case what is the alternative, Can Government create its own pool of developers or Can government make contract for only manpower from companies or Can government strengthen its own technical intuition. Yes, all three solutions viable and have its own pro and cons depending on the nature of the project. In my opinion, the best would be third option considering their institutional back up and accountability, at least. I believe, A Known devil is better than unknown devil. 
 

Disclaimer: Purely personal opinion.

 
Vendor Lock


Comments

  1. ShylaMay 10, 2021 at 12:00 PM

    Very true sir. I also felt the same when I was working for ITBT department.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Prabhakar HLMay 28, 2021 at 4:04 PM

      If you wish, you can share your experience here.

      Delete
  2. UnknownMay 10, 2021 at 12:05 PM

    Very aptly Said, the issue is after floting RFP, if you keep on changing the requirements, we need to rework on the entire architecture of the application. Better to have in house. But question remains who will monitor/ guide/ supervise them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Prabhakar HLMay 28, 2021 at 4:08 PM

      Government requirement keep changing, since it does not have fixed stakeholders. I strongly agree with you to have in house team, with regular monitor/supervision from external experts.

      Delete
  3. AnonymousMay 10, 2021 at 3:26 PM

    101%True.

    ReplyDelete
  4. ShivaprasadMay 10, 2021 at 3:34 PM

    Very well touched the problem in e- governance..

    ReplyDelete
  5. ShashiMay 10, 2021 at 3:37 PM

    Good article!! From the solution point of view, yes, all the above specified three options are good & it’s viable.

    And also, I believe, if we think from long term prospective, Ideally Government should have it’s own IT cell filled with potential Project Managers, developers, testers and others required resources which should capable of handling all government IT projects / requirements & delivery should happen with in defined SLA . It takes lot of time to build such a team but surely this will breakdown the dependence on the service companies which delays all the government projects for one or the other reasons.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Prabhakar HLMay 28, 2021 at 4:10 PM

      Yes, i agree, Government should have its own team.

      Delete
  6. SuhasMay 10, 2021 at 8:10 PM

    Very well thought and brilliantly written blog. Sir, I feel you have put all your experience with CeG in this blog.

    ReplyDelete
  7. LokuMay 17, 2021 at 3:40 PM

    Bro I feel by making a little tweak in notification n MOU there can be plug for high price/charges for additional changes. There should always be space n scope for additional changes/requirement/addendums in the product requested within package or as you said building a own desired skillful team is long sustaining viable option, though build it is a hectic process at initial stage.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Prabhakar HLMay 28, 2021 at 4:13 PM

      Yes, it is solvable issue with amendments. The problem here is approval cycle and criticality of enhancement, both with take its own time. Yes, having internal team is time consuming and hectic at initial phase, but i feel, that the only option now.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular Post

Pain points in e-Governance - 3 : Resource Hopping

Image
  Resource Hopping Government, while implementing various e-Governance project, hire man power from market on contractual basis in various capacity to fill up various technical skill gaps. Most of the times their salary/package is on par with the market. Unlike private sector, hiring process in government has long approval cycle and  bench is not allowed. By the time interview is scheduled 1/5th of the candidates refuse to attend interview, siting long gap from application to interview. And in the interview, many candidate’s skill set never matches to their attractive 'CV’. We hire them for particular period, which most of the candidates are not willing. With all these pain, once appointment letter is issued to the candidate, three in ten refuses to join quoting wonderful reasons like, I need gym, office is not good, I can’t travel, I can’t work on Saturday, I need canteen, I can’t work after 5m, etc., etc. Later in many instances we have come to know that, these candidates
Read more

Good Governance Tool 1: Digilocker

Image
Mesmerize   Digilocker. Yes, it is Digilocker, mesmerizer for me. The way it grew, adopted and being used is no ordinary wonder. Just imagine the relief from going around the offices, friendly middleman! never ending waiting, long lasting ques etc., to get your own documents. I always wondered, why applicant is made to run around, to get a document from “A” department and submit to “B” department and bears the burden of proving that the submitted document is genuine. Why not a department which requires particular document can get it from the issuing department (source of truth) directly, without intervention of the applicant in this software era. And it happened. Somewhere in Jan 2015, the concepts of Digilocker was introduced by NEGD. It took almost few weeks to realise how it works and its impacts. Luckily My bosses (many IAS are visionaries) realised and asked us to take it forward quickly. Any product much in advance has its own challenges. When we started talking about this wi
Read more

Pain points in e-Governance - 1: "e"

Image
  The biggest problem in e-Governance is not the technology, nor the funds, nor the process, it’s the ego which is very first letter “e” of e-Governance followed by change management of its working force.    Yes, it’s the ego the prime culprit. Ego of decision makers, make government to keep reinventing the wheel. This may be due to fame, individuality etc., the fact remains that anything not served in time will not have the same palatability. When we serve under powerful few, we get what is offered, until unless popular demand for that quality is raised.  Often I see employees expressing their disability to adopt a technology for their official work quoting their educational background, age etc., and hence demand for formal training is sought. But many smartly neglect the fact that many of them   have learned to use smart phone without any formal training! . And still, after training, however the application is simple, few minor shortfalls or glitches are brought forward for non-a
Read more

Good Governance Application 1 : e-Office

Image
  Satisfaction For me it’s one of the stage, when we achieve a daunting and nearly impossible task, in time, with neat & smooth finish. This particular task had all possible resistance and was more prone to sabotage. Yet with precise planning, dedicated & committed team and also with huge support from the highest possible level in bureaucracy, we could execute it like a cake walk. Government moves with file. Every letter received by an public or any service given to stakeholders or any policy decision or for that matter anything in government are recorded in note sheet of file and decision are taken accordingly. This system is accountable and full proof. The issue with manual filing system is tracking is difficult, delay, tampering, loss etc., and more over the process consumed more paper. It is assumed that, in manual system an average document was photocopied 19 times, paper files get doubled every 3.5 years , paper usage in an average office grows 22 percent a year
Read more

Good Governance Tool 2: e-Sign

Image
  Relief Biggest bottle neck for meaningful e-Governance is signature from public for application or proceedings or witness or acknowledgment or receipt etc., which is inked form, i.e., signed on paper. Final objective of government is to serve public at various capacity. To make it convenient and easy, government has organised itself in to various departments. And departments have developed software application to cater public seamlessly, with efficient way. Since large public don’t have DSC to sign electronically, it became a kind of hybrid system. Ink signed Application and documents/certificates were scanned either in image format or in non-searchable PDF format. Best of the best Optical Character Reader (OCR) has its own limitation. And hence large chunk of unusable data has been created, leading to multiple data entry at different level with error inputs and multi formats, leading to chaos. And also increasing the storage cost at data centres.  The only way to check thi
Read more

Pain points in e-Governance – 5 : Longer Decision/Approval Cycle

Image
  Longer Decision/Approval Cycle  There is one legal maxim "Justice delayed is justice denied".  All e-Governance projects need many periodical decision/ approvals in terms of implementation, upgrades/enhancement, procurement etc. at various level, which are very critical for effective service delivery.  Due to various fear factors like Audit, Inspection, RTI etc., decisions are often delayed and referred to committees or pushed to higher level. Invariably these committees consist of Administrators and subject matter specialist from various institutes, if the decision involves huge cost, a political head will also be a part. Due to various background, diversified knowledge level of committee members and also diversified implementation approach of committee, decisions are delayed. Many times, decision are delayed due to lack of data, too many options, lack of resources, time etc., etc., Meanwhile a decision/approval is in process’s,  a. hardware will reach end of life,
Read more

Pain points in e-Governance – 4 : Reinventing Wheel

Image
  Reinventing Wheel  Anything under the sky, is a stake holder for a government and hence governance becomes challenging. It needs constant change/innovation/adoption. In a federated system, where every state has its own powers, bureaucrats often try to leave their foot prints within the system by making change/innovation/adopt. Depending on the strength of the change, legacy may continue or perish. But the fact remains, the expenditure for any change is borne by all of us. Change process is slow in government due to due process of rules and regulation, as compared to corporate. Hence, ideally in a technology driven governance, it’s always better to adopt the solution, which are time-tested. Since Indian state governance is built on colonial legacy system, the process is largely same, with minor changes due to Cultural, demo-graphical situation and also geographical situation. Hence adoption of technology with minor changes is more viable in terms of efficiency. For technical s
Read more

Good Governance Application 2 : Direct Benefit Transfer

Image
  Plugged In / Leak Off/ Sealed Only 15 paise reaches the needy’: SC quotes one of the major politician remarks in its Aadhaar verdict in 2016. This quote came In 1985, on a visit to drought-affected Kalahandi district in Odisha as “ every rupee spent by the government, only 15 paise reached the intended beneficiary”. That was the scenario in those days. Has it changed now, my answer will be, yes, to a larger extent. Governments across the world run large cash/kind transfer programmes as an incentive to access essential commodities to its beneficiaries as a part of the government manifesto.  Even though the intention is good, due to the process, pilferage was high. Let’s take an example of scholarship, the flow of release is depicted below.   The issue with this flow is too many intermediaries, delay, lack of a mechanism to know whether the intended beneficiary received it or not. Due to the nonexistence of bank account to beneficiary cash disbursal happens at the last mile. Due
Read more

Pain points in e-Governance – 8 : Non-Adoption of Master Data Management

Image
      Non-Adoption of Master Data Management India has 662538 villages, 283967 local bodies and 736 districts. Many villages have the same name. Have you ever wondered spelling of your district, city, village, wards, etc., are different in various records given by departments.  Department uses a different naming convention for its administrative purpose. Some use Census code, a few uses Local Government codes and others use their code. Census code changes during each cenus. Data across departments becomes fragmented and duplicated  Due to different codes for the same places, sharing data among programs and across systems is often impossible because of integration issues. This creates a huge roadblock in consolidated reporting. Many times it leads to dispute. Thereby reducing the chances of Improving service delivery, streamlining operations and efficient Decision Making. Since data is stored in various databases, storage infrastructure is also more, which adds a huge cost to the stat
Read more