It is a common knowledge that e-governance is sine qua non in order to bring transparency in the functioning of the government. It is also a potent force to bridge the digital divide that engulfs the developing countries like India. HP has been associated with many e-governance projects initiated in the country. VARIndia met Faisal M. Paul, Country Manager, HPC and Linux-OpenSource, HP India, to find out how the company has done in the arena and what challenges lie ahead.
“E-governance has certainly taken place in the country. But it is too early to measure its impact in such a short time. Maybe, 2010 will be a good point to take stock of where we stand, that will be the time when high-end computing and e-governance can be taken up,” says Faisal. “HP has certainly made significant progress in the last couple of years,” adds Paul.
At the end of the last year, the Government of Karnataka and HP entered into partnership to provide a unified online e-procurement platform.
In continuance of the various e-governance initiatives of the Karnataka Government, a common e-procurement platform for the State has been set up. This facilitates, in an online electronic manner, the government procurement activities like publishing of tenders/RFP, bidding online, empanelment of suppliers/contractors, contract management, demand aggregation, etc., with a minimum effort, covering activities for the procurement of goods, works as well as services.
The project would be implemented in two phases. In the pilot phase, HP will be required to successfully deploy the e-procurement system and handle live transactions through them on a test basis in selected departments/organizations. The actual rollout will happen once the pilot phase is over.
The Centre for e-Governance would be the implementing agency for the e-procurement project with HP as the private partner for setting up of the single unified e-Procurement platform for Karnataka, for a period of five years after the completion of the pilot phase.
The Government of Karnataka has also formed an e-Procurement Cell, which acts as a nodal agency for coordinating and administering implementation of e-procurement across multiple departments in the State.
The implementation has come into full swing after getting the mandate by the amendment to the Karnataka Transparency and Public Procurement (KTPP) Act.
The project will eventually cover all departments, PSUs and other governments.
“We are trying to make inroads, trying to think creatively, national e-governance projects, hospitalisation and information management system,” says Paul.
The Union Government has enhanced the allocation for e-governance from Rs.395 crore in the year 2006-07 to Rs.719 crore in 2007-08. “The budget has opened the eyes of the people,” says Paul.
“Today, the Government is smart enough to understand what is best for their use in terms of their cost of ownership,” adds Paul.
“HP is growing faster than the industry is doing in India. Which is about 40 per cent for the last 2-3 years. We will be close-to 2 billion in October in 2007. This is a phenomenal growth. We will be twice as much size the IBM operations in India. We will be close-to 27 and half thousand employees in India. We are doing far wider and bigger role and responsibility in domestic operations,” says Paul.
The best thing about HP is that being a leading systems integrator it packages best-of-breed solutions with a mix and match of open source and commercial software unlike the competition, which provides completely proprietary software. HP also becomes accountable for the package it offers to the customers. “Because we felt that if HP stands guarantee that the company will implement and be responsible for them we have the confidence. Implementation of solutions through the life cycle is the key. Customer needs a vendor we take care,” adds Paul.
“A project has infrastructure, software offerings, application, implementation, database, and maintenance through the life cycle of an application. The project vendors like Microsoft are not a complete SI. So, they necessarily have to work with the people of HP,” adds Paul.
Linux is very popular in that space because of its flexibility in terms of use and upgradeability and of course low cost. HP provides servers based on Intel Xion, AMD Upteron and Intel Itanium, which combined with Linux makes it more value-for-money proposition.
HP is in negotiations with different state governments to associate itself with the e- governance projects being initiated in the country. Prominent among the states are West Bengal and Assam.
“Initially, when HP started government business some four years back we were facing problems. But now we have become mature and understood the nitty-gritty of the relationship,” says Paul.
